


Chaos as Therapy

by ughineedcoffee



Series: The Runt of the Litter [19]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Best Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship, Gen, Parental Dean Winchester, Parental Sam Winchester, Partying, Teenage Rebellion, Teenagers, Underage Drinking, Winchester Sister, little sister - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29068620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughineedcoffee/pseuds/ughineedcoffee
Summary: Anna's really getting tired of being bossed around. And she's even more tired of this nagging pain she can't get rid of, the one saying she doesn't have a place in the world her friends live in OR the one her family knows. She needs a night to let loose, so she goes to a party with her best friend. But things quickly get WAY out of hand.Contains some pissed and parental Dean and a lot of heightened emotions and teenager problems.
Series: The Runt of the Litter [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112966
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Feeling Young and Reckless

**Author's Note:**

> There are two parts to this one, and it's heavy stuff, so prepare yourself to feel some feels. Also, it's long...  
> The first chapter title "Feeling Young and Reckless" is a lyric from a Fall Out Boy song. Anna is sixteen.

She woke on top of a textbook, pencil eraser jammed against her cheek and surely leaving red indents in its wake as she slowly lifted her head. Her neck cracked with every centimeter of movement, and her elbow popped three times as she flung an arm sideways to find her phone a few inches from the textbook.

It had been one of those nights where the homework was positively endless and unconquerable. She'd made it to her last assignment and, apparently, fallen asleep halfway through it. As she checked her phone with a stomach full of dread and a brain full of fog, Anna yawned. 5:40am, and she felt like she'd barely closed her eyes _._ _Last assignment_ , she barely recalled telling Sam when she started these notes at two o'clock and he urged her to just go to bed. _I'll be done in, like, twenty minutes. Then I'll sleep_. Except, twenty minutes worth of work quickly becomes an hour of work when it's two o'clock in the morning. So she'd fallen asleep before finishing the notes, slept for three hours, give or take. Now, she had about two hours to finish the work and get ready for school, and falling back asleep would surely mean not waking up until too late.

She ran a hand through her messy, limp curls and her lip curled in disgust. "I need a shower," she said to nobody and then groaned at the thought of walking to the bathroom and actually _taking_ a shower. It would all take so much effort. She would have to, like, _move_ and stuff.

With a heartfelt sigh, Anna peeled herself away from the chair she'd slept in and squinted at the papers on the table. She couldn't even read, she was so tired. It would help if the entire week hadn't been like this.

Monday, it had been a History paper due at midnight, one that Anna had forgotten about all weekend because she had been busy tagging along for a salt and burn the boys caught wind of a few hours away. But really, who makes papers due Monday night anyway? Tuesday, it had been a collection of math papers and a test that needed fixing up because Anna just could _not_ seem to get graphing rational functions down, and Sam was so tired all the time that asking him for math help seemed like it would be burdensome? Wednesday, there had been a slight break in the homework department-- just the usual math sheet, reading assignment, and lab report-- but there had been a mess of drama between Mila and this really wealthy girl in their English class who Anna had met, like, once. Somehow, Mila had implicated both Anna and Kate into an argument over some rumor that had been spread over the first two days of the week. Yesterday had included an onslaught of continued drama during the school day, then an infinite collection of homework assignments. Not one night this week had Anna gotten more than four hours of sleep, and she was feeling it.

Still, her hair wouldn't wash itself, and her psychology notes wouldn't write themselves, and Anna would be damned if she left the house without just about five cups of coffee in her system. So, she got moving, even if she already had a feeling deep in her gut that this Friday was going to be the death of her.

()()()

"Well, don't you just look like hammered crap this morning," Dean quipped as he poured himself a cup of coffee and watched Anna drag her feet into the kitchen.

Anna gave him a half-hearted glare past her half-dried curly hair and shook her head. "Hey, I showered. I'm already doin' better than yesterday." She smiled lustfully at the cup of coffee he handed her and breathed in the scent of it as if that alone gave her life. She took a careful sip that burned her tongue anyway, and then she paused and looked up at Dean, who was moving across the kitchen toward the table. He had Sam's laptop open in front of him as he sat down.

"How are you even awake at six?" she queried and headed that way to drop in the chair across from him.

"Uh, got a call from a hunting buddy a few states away," he explained, barely glancing at her before looking back to the laptop screen. "He caught wind of something in Virginia, but he can't make it 'cause he's tied up in another case right now. He called to get us on it, or see if we knew anybody else who could take it."

"At six in the morning?" Anna squinted disbelievingly at her brother.

"Well, he's workin' a case, makes sense he'd be up with the sun."

Hunters were like that. Most were, anyway. They'd worked with these cousins a while back who hunted together, and those boys did _not_ rise and shine before at least 10am. Anna couldn't say she didn't respect that a little bit, though.

"So that means you guys are leaving today?" she asked. Of course, she was a little disappointed, but she didn't let it seep into her voice. She was so exhausted that she didn't sound anything but tired as she practically buried her face in her coffee cup.

"Unless there's somebody already in the area."

"Odds say no."

"'Zactly."

"So, can I ditch?"

Dean gave her an unimpressed little smile. "No," he answered dully and started scrolling through an article on the laptop in front of him.

Anna bobbed her eyebrows once. She wasn't surprised by his answer, but she wasn't pleased by it either. She hated that they left her alone at the bunker all the time to go hunt. She hated it even more when they left right before the weekend like this and didn't let her come with. They'd put off training her time and time again over the years. Since moving into the bunker, they'd started training her mostly on weekends and when they left like this, not only did Anna miss a weekend of training, but she spent the weekend alone in the bunker-- she wasn't supposed to leave by herself-- and she had to sit in the knowledge that she was missing an opportunity to get more experience actually _hunting_.

It was at times like this that she wished she'd never let them talk her out of dropping out. Maybe her logic had been a little messed up at the time, but the idea hadn't been such a bad one. And if she was being honest with herself, she hadn't been completely wrong to think she was inconveniencing them by being a high school student instead of a hunter. She knew that they preferred this for her. But she also knew that they wanted her in school because they wanted her safe, because she was just a kid and probably forever would be in their eyes, and because they thought it was their duty to make sure she had a better life than they had, that she be anything but a hunter. But Anna didn't want better. She wanted to be one of them in a way she wasn't sure she'd ever really been.

But that was just about enough deep and upsetting thinking for her this morning considering she'd had about three hours of sleep maximum, so Anna cut off her train of thought and focused on the life-saving substance before her.

"So, I'm takin' the bus today, huh?"

"And I'd wager you'll survive it."

"You say that, but you've never taken a school bus in your _life_."

"Not true," Dean said, sounding almost offended. Then a shit-eating grin spread widely over his face. "Rode one for a field trip when I was nine."

"Field trip buses in third grade are not high school buses with fourteen year old boys on them. Totally different. I mean, have you ever listened to two fourteen year old boys have a conversation?" She was unsurprised to see that Dean didn't have any sympathy for her. So, she took the opportunity to encourage some empathy and started to give him examples of what those teenage boys often sounded like on the bus ride home. " _She's, like, totally an e-girl. And an eleven out of ten, my guy. You don't think she's an e-girl? Say psych right now. No way. She's so_ not _VSCO._ "

"Okay, stop it, before my ears start bleeding."

"Mhm. My point exactly."

"Pitiful as that may be," Dean allowed, then stood up and closed the laptop to bring it out of the room. "You still have to ride the bus."

"I could walk."

Immediately, Dean's body language changed. His shoulders stiffened as he turned around with his arms crossed and drew himself up to his full height. With Anna sitting, it wasn't necessary, but she recognized the stance for what it was. It was his full _Dad Mode_ , and it was accompanied by an unimpressed and stern expression. "Excuse me?"

For a second, Anna became flustered even though she'd faced this look about a million times in her life. "Well- I- Well, what's so stupid about that? It's only, like, twelve miles or something."

"Mhm," Dean returned, unwavering. "All the way through town and then a ten mile stretch of road where God knows what could happen."

"Oh, come on. I think I've seen worse than hitchhiker or a trucker."

"I don't care what you've seen before. Walkin' that road by yourself is an unnecessary risk, and I don't want to hear the suggestion ever again. You read me?"

Anna rolled her eyes mildly, feeling a little uncomfortable with the reprimand and a little angry about being spoken to like a little kid despite that she was about to spend the weekend alone. But she looked away, which, in her mind, was an agreement. To Dean, it wasn't sufficient, and he cleared his throat as if reminding her he was waiting. Anna rolled her eyes a second time, more exaggeratedly, and groaned. "Oh my god. Fine." She got a side-eye for the dramatics, but at least he seemed to believe her as he snatched the laptop up off the table and went to go find Sam. In a voice quiet that she knew she wouldn't be heard, Anna muttered bitterly, "You're gonna leave while I'm at school and not come back 'til middle of next week, but you still wanna dictate my life. Tryin' real damn hard to have it both ways, aren't we, jackass."

She glanced up after her own words had dropped like bombs into the silent kitchen, just to make sure there was no chance she'd been heard. Nobody was around. But it didn't matter. She'd punched _herself_ in the gut speaking so bitterly-- honestly?-- about her attitude toward Dean's little play at being authoritarian.

()()()

When she shoved her backpack into her locker and pulled out her money for lunch, an unexpected hand on her shoulder nearly had her decking her best friend out of sheer reflex. As she spun around, Anna clamped down on her body's instinctive attempt to throw a fist just _barely_. Then her shoulders dropped as she relaxed. "Kate. Don't do that," she said a little breathlessly. Then she stopped, face falling and shoulders drawing up tensely again as she took in the misery on Kate's face. "What h-? What's wrong? Do I have to beat someone up? Did Arya do something? I will break her."

"Anna, stop. Arya didn't do anything to me. She's not even here right now. Her parents took her to the Swiss mountains."

Anna snorted a laugh. That sounded about right for Arya. All her amusement faded fast, though. "Well, then, what's wrong? Is it your parents?"

"Actually," Kate sighed. "Sort of. Yeah."

Anna braced herself for a difficult conversation and nudged Kate gently. "What's going on?"

"I- Look, I'm not exactly thrilled to be asking you this, but... Can you do me a favor and get in on a really bad idea?"

"Bad ideas are my favorite," Anna grinned, though inside she grew nervous. Bad ideas could mean anything.

Last year at homecoming, the bad idea had been helping the seniors play a prank on the gym teacher nobody liked. Anna and Kate had been the distraction while a group of upperclassmen stole his bright orange car, parked it outside a strip joint, and took pictures which were then printed and posted on bulletin boards around school. Both girls had wound up in detention because they were known to be accomplices to the prank none of the seniors had been caught performing, and they refused to give up any names because they were sophomores and the seniors were _seniors_. Kate hadn't thought of that one, nore had Anna. But they'd both known how bad an idea it was, and they'd still done it, naively believing that they wouldn't get in trouble just for being the distraction.

Maybe that had been more exhilarating and hilarious than terrifying... But Anna didn't have any desire to relive the three weeks she'd spent re-organizing store rooms at the bunker with Sam looking over her shoulder to make sure she didn't accidentally grab a cursed object bare handed or do anything equally stupid. Not to mention, detention was about as boring as watching paint dry. Kate had been there, sure, but they'd been ordered to stay silent and write, _I will not disregard authority,_ among many other lines like kindergarteners. Anna actually had a foggy memory of being forced to write lines when she was five or six because she'd spent an entire day riding in her father's truck, being as difficult as possible because she was cranky and bored. It was quite literally a punishment for little kids.

"Bad ideas are my least favorite, so I'm gonna need you to inspire some confidence in me while you're at it," Kate admitted with just enough legitimate fear in her voice that it gave Anna pause. She turned around just long enough to shut her locker and then faced Kate, looking straight into her brown eyes expectantly. "Alright, so... You know how my dad has that... girlfriend," she said like it was hard for her to speak the word. It probably was.

"Mhm. Thirty-something redhead? Midlife crisis material?"

Kate shot her a look for her insensitivity, but she didn't seem offended. Anna knew what was too far when it came to her best friend, and she wouldn't deliberately say anything that would hurt Kate. "She has a son, apparently. And my dad wants me to get to know him."

"No," Anna said in disbelief. It was a dirty move by Kate's father, and there was no way around that. He knew how guilty Kate would feel denying him anything like this, and he _had_ to know how uncomfortable and borderline painful it would be for his daughter to spend time with his new girlfriend's son. It was just... wrong. "Kate, that sucks shit. I'm so sorry."

"Eloquently put. You're not wrong. It sucks shit. But it gets worse. I figured at first that I could just, like, pretend he's just some random kid-"

"He _is_ just some random kid."

"Well, what if someday he's my step brother?"

"Way ahead of yourself."

"Yeah," Kate admitted. She sighed in a way that made her sound increasingly agitated. "Well, I figured I'd just pretend he was any random teenager that I'd met just walking down the hallway. Anyway, last night my dad talked to Iris and she talked to her son and they decided tonight would be good."

"Tonight?" Anna asked emphatically.

That seemed like short notice. Not to mention, any favor Kate was about to call in had just automatically gotten more complicated. Anna wasn't supposed to go anywhere but school and the bunker when her family was gone unless she had explicit permission. Usually, that was as simple as: _Can I go to Kate's?_ and an answering text of _Sure. Text when you get back._ But if there was a bad idea coming, Anna could hardly ask about that.

"I know, it's really short notice. But your brothers are cool. Maybe they'll be fine with it. I mean, we do weekend sleepovers all the time. Tell them it's one of those."

"You're already asking me to lie to my family." Kate immediately looked guilty and Anna shook her head to put her friend at ease. "No, it- it's fine, Katie. Just... finish explaining. What am I doing?"

"Okay. Um. So, this morning Timber-- that's her son's name." Anna nodded her understanding as Kate fumbled to pull up a text conversation on her phone. She found it and kept talking, "This morning, he texted me. He was like, _Hey. Weird that we're supposed to get along, right?_ And I didn't know what to say, so I just said _Yeah, it's a little weird_. And I put that awkward smile emoji because it seemed like it fit." Anna smirked a little at Kate's rambling. "And he immediately comes back with _I'm throwing a wicked bash while my mom's out of town with your old man. It's tonight. Which means you're there. Bring some beer if you can._ "

Anna stared blankly at Kate for a minute after she'd finished speaking. Then she scoffed, thoroughly disgusted by this kid she'd never met. "You don't have to put up with that."

"Anna, he's..." but Kate seemed to be unsure how to even finish her own sentence.

"Your dad's girlfriend's son. AKA not your problem."

"Well, my dad _made_ this my problem, and I don't want to wreck anything he has going. Yeah, I don't understand his bullshit lately, but... But I've never been divorced, so maybe I should be giving him the benefit of the doubt."

"Did he teach you those lines?" Anna asked, then regretted how harsh she'd sounded. "Sorry. It's just... Kate, this is completely unfair to you."

"Well, maybe it's only reasonable that I start caring about other people more than myself," Kate snapped back.

"Katie-"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I hate asking you this but... I already told him I'd go. I don't want to ruin my dad's image of Iris _or_ her kid."

"Ever since they got together, all I hear is how much you hate it. How hurt you are that he found somebody else so fast. Why would you protect what he has when it hurts you so much that he has it."

Kate shook her head a little frantically. "I don't know. I don't know. I just- don't wanna be the reason things go sideways. I don't wanna be selfish. I know he can't last with her. She's not my mother and... I don't want to know her because I don't want him to last with her but I don't want to be selfish so I don't want to be the reason he doesn't last with her. So I have to do what I can not to get in the way of this. You know, if it _is_ what's gonna make him happy, then who am I to take that away from him? I'm half the reason things went so wrong with my parents, Anna, and they've both been so angry and hurt and distant for over a year now. I just..."

"Don't want to have anything else to feel guilty about."

"Right. So if it won't get you into world-ending trouble, and if you're not totally freaked out about the idea then... come to the party with me. Please. I feel nauseous thinking about going to this thing as it is and you are literally the only human being on this planet that I think could keep it together at one of these insane high school parties without either running at the last second or going off the charts insane, getting drunk, and breaking a pool table."

"Sounds like a good time," Anna laughed. "Straight outta that John Mulaney bit." Her mirth faded when she saw that Kate hadn't cracked a smile. "But you know what, Kate, if your dad is putting you up to this then... I don't know, maybe we should go to this thing and, like, not worry about being sticks in the mud. He wants you to hit it off with this _Timber_ kid, right?"

"Yeah. He spent half an hour last night telling me how great he thinks we'll get along and how amazing it'll be when he can bring me to visit them in the summer. He's planning my summer vacation. Which is bullshit, but... I just feel so bad. I mean, I want to do this right."

"Kate, your guilt is unfounded. You are an angel, and your anxiety about going to this party is proof of that. But here's my pitch." She leaned forward just slightly and spoke more quietly even though they were in an empty school hallway. She was suddenly feeling excited and jittery and just the right amount of rebellious considering that Sam and Dean would _totally_ disapprove of attending a so-called _wicked bash_ thrown by a kid named Timber. "If your dad is guilt-tripping you into visiting Timber, you have a rather convenient little reason to let loose at this thing tonight. You're supposed to be getting along with the kid named after dead trees, so you might as well join his scene for the night. And I'll jump right in."

"Uh, Anna, I don't-"

"Kate, if we go to this and the cops show up like in all the movies, then we'll get in trouble anyway. Why not have a blast for one night?"

"Okay, forget about my half of this for a second. Timber lives like forty minutes from here and this party is probably gonna go all night. If Sam or Dean gets, like, the slightest idea that something is off, which they totally will because you suck at lying to them, then we're both toast. Mostly you. But we're both toast. And then my dad finds out what Timber did and things get screwed up and I still feel guilty. Your plan sucks."

"Chill," Anna said with an eye roll. She gave a cocky grin. "Sam and Dean are leaving for a hunt today, Kate. They won't be home tonight. At all. If you can pick me up at the bunker, we will have nothing to worry about. I don't even have to tell them I'm staying with you. They never have to know I left the bunker."

Kate looked unsure, but not as nervous as before. "You're sure?"

"Totally. One hundred percent. If they call to check in, I'll make sure I'm in a quiet spot, and I'll be cool and they will never know anything's up."

"Anna, you are terrible at lying to them."

"I'm an awesome liar," Anna challenged with her arms crossed.

"Yeah, to everyone other than them."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Her voice went higher as she got defensive and Kate raised one eyebrow as if that proved her point. It kinda did. "I can lie to them, Kate. I probably won't even have to. But I can if I need to. So, we're golden."

With that, the bell rang.

"Alright, fine," Kate said. "But if you're uncomfortable with this, like, at _all_ , then tell me. Don't do it just because you feel like you have to."

Anna laughed humorlessly. "That's why you're doing it."

Kate's face took on a look of grim acceptance. "You make a good point. In that case, no backing out. I will not go down alone." She grinned at Anna as she backed away, backpack over one shoulder.

"I will not _let_ you go down alone," Anna called back with a matching grin. As she turned away from Kate and back to her locker to retrieve her backpack, Anna's grin only widened. She was about to go to a real, stupid, kinda dangerous, and hella fun high school party. With booze, idiots, and, probably, really loud and kinda crappy music. _I'll take the bus, Dean_ , she thought slyly. _And then I'll put on ripped jeans and a leather jacket, hop in Kate's car, and go do exactly what you always tell me not to do: Act like you._

()()()

As she stepped out of her final class of the day, Anna pulled her phone out and her face fell half a mile. A text from Dean graced her phone screen.

_Garth got somebody on it. Don't take the bus_.

So, this complicated things.

As she walked down the hallway in a crowd of rowdy teenagers, Anna found Kate's name in her contacts and got her on the phone after several rings. " _Hey. Second thoughts?_ "

"No," Anna answered immediately. "No seconds thoughts. But Dean just texted me. They didn't leave today, so I have to tell them I'm going to your place. The odds they find out I'm lying are low but not zero. So just... know that our chances of getting caught snuck up a little bit."

There was a pause and then Kate's voice came in, hesitant. " _You don't have to do this. I mean, don't get me wrong, I want you there, but... I don't want you in trouble, Anna. Not for me_."

"There's nobody I'd rather get in trouble for. Not to mention, I'm excited. Kate, this is our first cool party. Ever. I'm sure we'll both feel a little guilty about it, but we'll get over it. Tonight is gonna be epic."

" _I think you're a little too excited for this._ "

"We're teenagers. Rebellion is healthy. I think."

" _Don't tell me you're using my crappier than crap situation as an excuse to revolt against authority. Girl, you have brothers instead of parents. What are you even rebelling about?_ "

Pausing as she got outside and was blinded by the sunlight, Anna bobbed her eyebrows once in bitter acknowledgement. "Exactly. Brothers not parents and they still tell me what to do all the time." She started walking toward the parking lot and spotted the Impala on the far side. "They treat me like a toddler, Kate. Anyway, though, tonight's not about me. We're just gonna have some fun as best friends. We can ignore everyone else, drink a little, dance a lot, I don't know. Whatever people do at parties."

There was another pause, but Kate's voice was much steadier when she answered. " _It does sound kinda fun._ "

"Right?"

" _Okay, so I can pick you up at eight. Or do you wanna come over here first since that's where you said you'd go?_ "

"Let me talk to Dean first. If I have a time and pick up plan all set then he'll think I was planning to sneak out when they were gone."

" _You_ were _planning to sneak out_."

Anna tilted her head with a bitch face even though Kate couldn't see that over the phone. "He doesn't know that."

Kate laughed, " _Okay, let me know, then._ "

"I will. Stay perfect."

" _You too_."

Anna ended the call, shoved her phone in her jeans pocket, and adjusted her backpack on her shoulder. She held her head high as she made her way across the parking lot. She dropped into the passenger side of the Impala and grinned sideways at her brother even though she wasn't feeling very charitable toward him lately.

"Well, you look way too happy," Dean quipped, setting aside his phone on the seat as Anna swung her door shut. "If you're about to tell me you have a date, remember there's an arsenal in the trunk."

Anna rolled her eyes fondly. Dean's attitude toward her romantic life-- which was mostly nonexistent-- was half-sweet and half-stifling. "Actually, Kate asked me to hang out tonight."

"Thank God," Dean exaggerated and shifted the car into drive. "You have a ride?"

"Yeah. Kate'll pick me up." Anna smirked, but the expression was private this time. Unknowingly, Dean had played right into her hand by jumping to a wrong conclusion and subsequently giving her easy permission to hang out with Kate.

()()()

The party was hardly an inconspicuous operation if the cars filling a field across the road from the house were anything to go by.

"So, this kid is popular?" Anna asked, peering out the windshield as Kate maneuvered her mother's car into a tight spot.

"Probably just happens to have a decent place for partying."

"Yeah, why didn't you mention Iris is loaded?" Anna asked as she opened the passenger door and gazed awestruck at the three story house across the road. "I mean, a house that big in the middle of nowhere?"

"It's literally two miles out of town."

"Same difference."

Kate shrugged, adjusting her denim jacket around her wrists and then grinning at Anna. "We look good, right?"

"We look badass."

Kate grinned. "Cool. Not gonna lie, I'm totally nervous, but, like, in a good way, I think."

Anna didn't need any further explanation. She nodded and blew out a heavy breath. "Same." Side by side, they walked across the road and onto Timber's front lawn. "So, we should probably actually meet this kid, right?"

"I'm sure my dad will ask a million questions about what I think of him and how we got along. So, yeah."

"Okay, well, hopefully he's not too offended that we didn't bring beer. But ever since the bar thing last year, Sam is very wary of handing me any fake ID even when it's for a case, so the alcohol was never gonna happen."

"I don't want to get that deep into this anyway," Kate said. "Let's just talk to Timber a little so I can tell my dad something relatively accurate about him or at least know what he looks like and... Then we can be free."

"Free to drink beer and flirt with people?"

"Arya's in the Swiss Mountains, but she is still my sort-of-girlfriend, Anna."

"Okay, so I can flirt with people."

"All you want. But I swear that if you ditch me for some random kid, even if he or she is super hot, I will gore you."

Anna looked affronted. "Kate, I've never done that to you and I'm not about to start."

"Okay, it's just that I don't know what you're like drunk and-"

Anna frowned a little and let out a little huff of laughter. "We're not- I'm not getting _drunk_. I'm just gonna have a drink or two. Or three. Tops. One of us has to drive home and it should probably be the one with a license, so I hope you're not planning on getting smashed either."

Kate looked a little flustered. "Well, I just want... I just want to let go of all this shit tonight. If a couple drinks can do that, fine."

"Kate, that's-" Anna was cut off when Kate surged forward.

What she'd been about to say was, _That's not a discussion. You can't get drunk right now. How do we get home if you're drunk? How do I explain when Dean has to pick me up tomorrow because you're hungover? How do I reconcile that I'm the one who said you should drink a little if you get drunk and do something stupid? What are you gonna think of yourself tomorrow? You can't get drunk, Kate. You're too smart and good and if I'm the reason you get drunk and do something stupid then everything after is my fault._

Instead, she shut up and reminded herself that, tonight, they were rebelling and having fun and being normal teenagers. They were being kids. Acting their age. She followed Kate through a field of teenagers to the front of the house. Outside the front door were several coolers, some being used as chairs by some boys that looked a little older than Anna and Kate and were singing along to MCR's _House of Wolves_ which blared even over the loud rumble of voices.

"How are we supposed to find him if you don't know what he looks like?" Anna yelled over all the racket. She could still barely hear herself, but with Kate right in front of her, she hoped she'd been heard by her best friend.

"I know he's got red hair like his mom," Kate shouted back. It sounded distorted and thin when combined with the noise of the crowd around them, but Anna was able to figure out what Kate had said after a minute of thought. "I think I see him!" she called after another minute of pushing through people. They stepped into a room with several bookshelves and a number of couches and tables set up all around. It was tastefully decorated, and it looked like a miniature library or a giant living room. Timber's family had to be beyond rich, and though she wouldn't say it aloud and chance hurting her best friend in the world, Anna wondered secretly whether Kate's father was dating Timber's mom for the money.

"Oh my God," Anna breathed as they entered. The noise wasn't so loud in this room with only a few groups of kids gathered in different places. But music and shouting still drifted in from outside. "This place is insane. I would kill for a room like this at the bunker."

"You have a library in the bunker," Kate reminded her.

"Yeah, but we have wooden chairs and tables in our library. Timber's livin' in luxury."

Kate bobbed her eyebrows. "Gotta admit, that alcove over there," she said, pointing, "fulfills all my middle school dreams. Imagine curling up in that window with a book and a hot cup of coffee."

Anna grinned and nudged Kate toward the alcove. "You're basically my spirit animal, Katie."

Kate laughed out loud. "I'm flattered, but how about you find an _animal_ to be your spirit animal?"

"Yeah, okay," Anna said with a playful eyeroll. In the alcove was a round window with a reddish brown frame and a windowsill big enough to be sat on. Mission to talk to Timber abandoned for the moment, both girls slid onto the sill and curled up. The toes of their shoes touched in front of them as they each leaned back against an inside wall of the window and simultaneously turned their heads to look outside.

"This would be even better if it were on the second floor. Or the third one... Think there are three floors here?"

"Totally," Anna confirmed then squinted a little as she looked at a group of teenagers outside smoking something she couldn't identify. "You know what else would make the view better?" she asked and paused, but not long enough that Kate had time to reply. "If that kid weren't projectile vomiting."

Kate leaned forward and narrowed her eyes out the window. "Damn," she said, cringing at the sight before them. "That's-" She looked away, as did Anna, when the kid didn't learn his lesson, took another puff off whatever they were smoking, coughed, and started puking again.

"Think he's drunk or just stupid?" Anna asked thoughtfully, glancing back at the kid as screams of _Gross!_ echoed from the scene outside.

"Possibly both."

"Good point."

"Evening, Ladies."

Both girls turned their heads suddenly at the new voice from their other side. "Timber?" Kate asked when she saw the thatch of red hair on the kid's head.

"Call me Tim. So you're Kat, huh?"

"Kate," came the correction. "And this is Anna."

"She your girlfriend?"

"Best friend, actually."

"So, you're single? Both of you."

"I have a girlfriend actually," Kate corrected again, shifting her feet uncomfortably. Why was this the first thing on Tim's mind when their parents were _dating_?

Tim turned to look at Anna, raising one eyebrow in question.

Anna tilted her head and let Tim take a look at her resting bitch face before answering. "Single but not ready to mingle..." Not with him anyway, and she waited for him to hear the silent _fuck off_. She may have mentioned flirting earlier, but she really hadn't figured out the whole romance thing just yet, and even if she had, this night was designed for her and Kate to spend some time together.

"Well, I am sorry to hear that," Tim said with a slightly awkward nod. "Well, now I can tell my mom I met you, so-" He didn't wait for an answer or finish his sentence, just left.

"I don't know what to think of him," Kate admitted, sounding a little disheartened.

"Well, I was under no illusion he'd be nice but... He's kind of a little prick."

"I guess," Kate half-agreed.

Anna looked over at her, feeling somewhat bewildered by Kate's reaction. Tim hadn't given a good first impression when he'd texted Kate this morning, and she'd kind of just assumed that Kate was expecting as little as Anna was. "What? Did you want to like him or something?"

"Not really. I just... I didn't expect him to either hit on us or ditch."

"Maybe you'll get to know him better some other time," Anna suggested optimistically. "Like, when he's not throwing a bash at his rich mom's house."

Kate shrugged, but she looked a little less upset. "Yeah, maybe. Whatever. You wanna go get something to drink and hang out or something?"

"Why not," Anna replied. They scooted out of the windowsill, nearly hitting their heads together in the process and laughed it off.

"The price of a beer," the drunk and staggering blonde boy sitting on a green cooler out front told Anna minutes later. "Is one kiss." Then he leaned forward like he expected Anna would comply, stumbling a step as he nearly lost his balance.

Anna glared at him, but he seemed unaffected, just grinning and listening to his equally drunk friends laugh. "I'd rather knock you out and get the beer for myself," she told him darkly. "I mean, since you're shitfaced, I could probably poke you with my pinky finger and you'd be incapacitated, but punching you would be more cathartic."

"Watch it, Carter. She's a baaaaaad bitch," another blonde boy Anna didn't recognize said drunkenly. "Look at that jacket, bro."

"Buh-ro."

Beside her, Kate grabbed Anna's sleeve and started to tug her away without speaking. Clearly, she didn't like being around these guys anymore than Anna did. But they didn't seem overtly malicious, just drunk and stupid. Anna was far from afraid of them, just upset, and in the moment, that feeling came out as anger.

"Move your stupid ass off the cooler so I can get a couple drinks before I knock your teeth into your brain."

"Anna," Kate reprimanded and pulled her away again as if afraid one of the boys would suddenly start throwing punches. Instead, though, they all looked startled even through their foggily intoxicated minds, and the blonde by the cooler moved out of the way.

Anna smirked and retrieved two beers before slamming the cooler shut and handing a can to Kate. "Let's party," she said as her grin widened.

Kate grinned right back, and somebody a few feet from them yelled, "Turn it up!" loudly enough to be heard over all the other sounds around them.

Over the voices on the crowded lawn blared a song that everybody started singing along to. Never had Anna felt so exhilarated while surrounded by people her own age as she did when she started singing along with Kate and everybody else.

_"I'm just a kid, and life is a nightmare_. _I'm just a kid. I know that it's not fair. Nobody cares 'cause I'm alone, and the world is having more fun than me tonight."_

()()()

"Kate, three is probably enough," Anna said, latching onto her friend's arm as she tried to head toward the coolers again. She was happy in an exhausted kind of way and she figured they'd have to go home soon to avoid being caught. The plan was for Kate to tell her mom when they got home that Anna had needed to come over because she was feeling sick and her brothers were out of town. That not only explained Anna's presence, but it explained Kate being back before morning as well. Provided there was no communication between Kate's mother and Anna's brothers, they figured they would be scot-free by tomorrow morning when Kate brought Anna home.

They were in the middle of the lawn, surrounded by kids they'd never met before tonight and who weren't making great first impressions. Just minutes before, a kid named Ralph had ralphed right next to Anna's shoes, triggering another kid nearby, Jayden, to throw up on another kid which made that kid throw up. It had seemed like the chain wouldn't end as person after person barfed into the grass of Tim's front lawn. There would be no hiding the evidence of the party tomorrow, so Anna hoped Timber's mom was pretty seriously in denial about this whole thing. She hated to think even half these kids could get caught. Fortunately, though, even if a lot of kids _did_ get busted, none of them actually knew Anna or Kate by name, because they lived in Lebanon and had never spent much time in Great Bend.

"I want to go for four," Kate said and stumbled a little. She wasn't totally wasted yet, but she definitely seemed to be feeling those three beers she'd downed over the past hour and a half. Anna wasn't surprised. They'd only drank together once, maybe twice, and Kate hated the taste of beer, so she hadn't really gone hard either time. "Four's an even number. And I only have a little bit of drunk right now."

Anna winced at the drunk-talk coming from her best friend who was always so perfect. She was such a bad influence for poor Kate. "Katie, do you remember that time we went to that bar and Dean found us and I told him I liked tequila?"

Kate squeezed her eyes shut and laughed harder than the memory warranted. "Oh yeah. That was so funny. Oh my god. He got, like, so mad but he was trying not to laugh. I wish my mom was like that. Dude, if she saw me right now, she would kill me so hard."

"Kate," Anna snapped, effectively regaining her friend's attention. "I mention that night because you are acting at least as bad now as I was then. Remember how you leaned over and told me to stop being an idiot. For my own good?"

"Yeah, you were so funny drunk, though. Oh my god, you were so funny. Dean thought you were funny. I could tell. But he was trying to be mad. But it was so funny."

"Kate-"

"I'm gonna get another beer. You want one?"

"Kate, I can't drive us home," Anna reminded her sharply. It seemed like nothing else would get through to her. "You have to stop drinking."

"Don't tell me what to do," Kate snapped. "You're literally holding a beer right now."

Immediately and without question, Anna backed off. She _was_ holding a beer. Not to mention, she'd been the one to insist they let loose in the first place. It was wrong for her to try and control Kate's actions with all that in mind. She was in no position to tell anybody what to do. She didn't even know how to control her own actions appropriately. Otherwise, she wouldn't have pulled those beers out of the cooler just over an hour ago. She wouldn't have threatened to punch a drunk boy in the face.

She watched Kate head toward the house and reluctantly followed. She had to at least stick by Kate's side. It just seemed like a bad idea to get separated here. As they walked, the speakers blared:

_I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind_.

_I left my body lying somewhere in the sands of time._

_I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon._

_I fear there's nothing I can do._

Anna bounced on her heels, feeling agitated as she watched Kate pull a fourth drink out of the cooler. She was itching to say something again, one last ditch effort to make Kate see reason. But she didn't dare. She just didn't feel qualified to dish out advice, especially on drinking, something she had more of a history of than her friend. She didn't take another drink for herself, though. She'd only had two beers, and the last one had been drained over half an hour ago. She was feeling slightly buzzed, but not anything like how Kate was.

"This stuff tastes like shit," Kate yelled over the music. "I love it soooo much."

Anna nodded with a little smirk of amusement that she didn't feel. "Alright, let's go dance as long as you can't drive."

"Wait, let me make it to five then." Kate grinned wider and started chugging the beer in her hand only to be shoved into from behind all of a sudden. She started coughing, beer dribbling from her mouth as she held the can away from herself and stumbled.

"Oh my god," Anna muttered and grabbed Kate's arm to pull her a little further from the kid who'd fallen into her. He'd been shoved by another boy, but it seemed like whatever happened was already de-escalating with this guy on the ground. "You good?" she asked Kate and got a nod as her friend went back to her beer. Anna sighed in frustration and looked to the boy on the ground. He was laying on his back, looking winded. "Hey, are you okay, man?"

"Amazing," the brunette on the ground answered. He seemed content to lay on his back and stare up at the increasingly dark sky and the stars in it. "It is a good-ass night, blondie."

Anna raised one eyebrow, unimpressed, but she smirked a little too. This guy was in the zone and she couldn't help her amusement. "Alright, well, you might want to consider standing so you don't get trampled, pal." She offered a hand and the kid took it, allowing her to pull him to his feet. He wavered once there and Anna squinted at him, hoping he wasn't drunk or high enough to fall right back down. After a minute, he muttered a _thanks, dude_ and hurried off into the house.

When Anna turned back to Kate, she grimaced. Beer number four was empty, if the way Kate was tossing it into a garbage can nearby was anything to go on. She intercepted her friend on the way to the cooler. "Four's an even number, remember?" she tried hesitantly.

"Five is my _lucky_ number," Kate said and tried to wink but lacked the coordination and really just blinked instead.

"Kate, seriously," Anna said, dropping her voice a little lower. "We have to get home somehow, and I don't like how crazy this thing is getting." As if on cue, sudden shouting erupted a few yards away, and Anna looked over Kate's shoulder to see some kid start running, three others chasing him.

" _Kate, seriously_ ," came the mocking response from her friend, who seemed oblivious to the commotion behind her. Anna took a physical step backwards at the unexpected reply. "Seriously? You're lecturing me about drinking too much? You're the one who said we should sneak into a bar last year and got so shitfaced we both got caught."

"Okay, yeah, but I was in a bad place at the time. And that was just us. There weren't all these kids who are on drugs and-"

"You're not the only one with problems, Anna! Just because your family is all, like, heroic and stuff, doesn't mean you're the only one with real issues! And I'm not holding a bong, just a beer. Get over yourself and let me have fun for once."

"Kate," Anna exclaimed, surprised and hurt. "I never- I never said I was the only one with problems. I know it's been hard for you with your parents and everything. I'm just looking out for you." She wasn't used to being the responsible one and she could feel herself floundering, trying to find the right words even as they backflipped away from her.

"Well, stop! Let me have fun this one time. You're the only one who ever has fun."

Anna frowned and caught Kate's arm as she tried to walk toward the cooler again. She could feel her temper rising at the insinuation that she had fun _ever_. "Kate, I never do _anything_. I'm alone all the time except when I'm with you. If you wanna have fun, let's do it somewhere else. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"Stop telling me what to do! You do this all the time. You wanna do something stupid, so you drag me along, but then when I start to do something you don't approve of, you automatically start acting like you know better. I hate it!"

Anna felt her temper swell. She did do that. Kate was right, and that offended her even though it shouldn't have. "Well, you're acting like an idiot," she snapped right back.

It was one thing for Anna to do stupid things that were potentially dangerous. She would probably die before her twenty-first birthday if not her eighteenth because of her family's job which would soon be _her_ job if she could claw her way out of their shadows. Furthermore, Anna was in a completely different place from Kate. If something happened to Kate, her mother would be devastated and her life irreparably turned upside down.

But, while Anna knew her brothers would be equally devastated were something to happen to her, she also couldn't help but think sometimes that they would be a little... freer without her. No constantly running back to the bunker between hunts. No forced parenthood on two chronic bachelors who never asked for that job. She knew well and good that she was not easy to take care of. She'd missed curfew about ten times in the first year they spent at the bunker solely because she considered it stupid that she even had one. Some days, including this one, she just couldn't stand the thought of her brothers always acting like her parents. She couldn't stand them setting rules and playing disciplinarian or soccer mom. It sucked enough being unsure of her place whenever she went on hunts with them during school breaks and on the occasional weekend. Anna loathed being unsure of her place in her own family.

"I'm just trynta get a _drink_ ," Kate told her bitterly, snapping Anna back to the present.

"Number five," Anna retorted. "We agreed on two or three."

"You agreed on that!" Kate yelled. "You're dictating. You always dictate as soon as I start to act like you. You think you're the only one who should get to have fun just because you have problems. Newsflash, Anna! So do I!"

Anna took a deep breath and let it out, surprised by how shaky it was. "I don't think that! And I don't dictate! I don't even get a say half the time, Kate!"

"Yes, you do!"

"Well, then, I'm sorry," Anna grit out, breathing heavily with suppressed anger. She had to at least try to maintain calm, because the more inebriated of the two of them couldn't be expected to. "I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass or a hypocrite or anything. I'm just trying to make sure you don't do something you'll regret, and if that makes me a shitty friend, then I'm fucking sorry, Kate."

"Well, I _regret_ asking you to come with me tonight."

Anna bristled bodily. "Well, _I_ regret suggesting we stay and drink, so if that's what this is about then there. I regret it. I'm changing my mind."

"I _regret_ listening to you," Kate said a little more quietly, but something like between anger and melancholy burned in her glazed brown eyes. "I always regret listening to you."

Anna felt a pang of hurt in her stomach and told herself it was the alcohol talking, not Kate. But she knew better. "Then, I regret always giving shitty advice. I regret being a shitty friend. But this is not a shitty friend move. I am _trying_ to look out for you. I'm trying to _reverse_ a shitty friend move."

"Well, I regret the day I gave you the idea you had any right to _look out for me_." Kate's expression went from furious to subdued, but when her eyes flicked back up to meet Anna's, there was so much pain and just enough residual anger there that Anna's stomach flipped at the sight of it. "Don't try and make me feel guilty, A," Kate said, her voice quiet enough that Anna could barely hear her over the roar of the party around them. "I always feel guilty."

It silenced Anna inside and out. She knew Kate wasn't exaggerating, and it hurt even worse than all the accusations that had been leveled at her through the course of their argument. Anna was one of the few people on the planet who knew the kind of unnecessary but real guilt that Kate shouldered, and she'd disregarded it without ever meaning to. The weight of that failure thudded into her with such force that she only came out of her stupor when Kate brushed past her. "Kate," she called helplessly. "Katie! Stop!"

"I'm getting a drink. Leave me alone!"

"Kate-!"

"Leave me alone!"

Anna took a minute to get her breathing under control and tried to think of what to do as Kate moved into the house with a beer in her hand. Anna had never seen her so free before. Yet, she was trying to take that from her. She'd been the one to suggest a night of fun, and she was trying to ruin it now that Kate was on board. Maybe Kate hadn't been exaggerating. Maybe she _was_ a bad friend. Maybe she did try to take control once Kate started losing it. But was that really her fault? She could recall Sam telling her once that when one person in a situation started to freak out, the other person tended to become more calm. Could that also mean that when one person in a friendship started to act wildly irresponsible, the other person automatically tried to pick up the slack and become the responsible one? Anna scrubbed a hand over her face, suddenly exhausted even though it was only ten o'clock. She was wildly underqualified to try being the responsible one in any relationship, let alone one so important to her. What if she'd damaged things with Kate beyond repair tonight? What if she'd lost her best friend, one of the few people in her life that she felt came closest to understanding her completely?

_It just takes some time,_ sang the speakers several yards away on either side of her.

_Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride._

_Everything, everything will be just fine._

_Everything, everything will be alright, alright._

The song's chorus enticed half the crowd to sing along, bringing the energy of the party up another notch. Around her, people were jumping and dancing, and somebody turned the music up, though Anna was surprised it could get any louder. She started to push her way away from the house, and she didn't stop moving until she made it to the edge of the crowd of people. By the road, there were a few small groups of people drinking out of Red Solo cups and beer cans. Anna found a clear spot that gave her some space from everybody and everything, and she sat in the damp grass, feeling it soak into the seat of her jeans. Away from the lights that had been set up across the lawn and by the house, she found the darkness here almost relieving. It was natural, and it would have been calm if not for the ear-splitting noise of the crowd a ways behind her. 

It was only ten o'clock. The night was young but Anna felt older than ever.

"What happened with your friend?" And things just got better and better.

"What?" she asked huffily, turning to see a tall boy with freckles and nearly jet black hair looking down at her.

"Your friend," the kid repeated, sitting down beside her in the grass though Anna certainly hadn't invited him. "She sounded a little, uh..."

"Drunk, I know. And you don't. You followed me over here, uh...?" she trailed off, waiting for a name.

"A.J. and I didn't really _follow you_ follow you. I just kinda... followed you..." he followed her lead and she knew he wanted to hear her name, too.

"Anna," she said, and they shook hands. It felt good to bring a piece of civilization into this wilderness. "And I get it. I just wanted out of the crowd for a minute."

"Sorry that happened to you, Anna. If it makes you feel any better, you're, like, the tenth sober-ish person I've seen arguing with a drunk person in the last hour."

Anna frowned, her lip pulling up in distaste. Kate shouldn't be categorized like that when this night was so bass-ackwards from their usual pattern as friends. "I'm not the responsible one in our friendship, actually. Kate is. She's just having a bad night, and it's my fault _because_ I'm always irresponsible. And I don't know why I'm telling you this, so..."

"Reciprocity is a social norm. I told you something about my night, so you felt obligated to tell me about yours," A.J. told her.

"Thanks for the psych lesson," Anna deadpanned. "Does that mean you planned this?"

A.J. smiled, but Anna couldn't quite return it. "No," he said. "If you do want to talk about it, though, I'm wicked bored and not drinking, so..."

"That's okay. You got anything to get off your chest? I've probably got another hour before she decides she's done drinking." More than likely, it would only take that long for Kate's guilt complex to kick in and bring her back to Anna to apologize even though Anna knew _she_ was the one who should apologize. She didn't feel sure of that, though. Not like she normally would. Kate had been so hurt when they finished arguing, and she'd never been drunk like this before, so the usual rules didn't apply. 

Anna couldn't help but admit to herself that the urge to follow Kate's lead and start chugging beer after beer was strong. But she didn't want to come off as any more of a hypocrite than she already felt she was. Not to mention, somebody had to make sure they didn't both pass out here and never make it home.

"Well, since you asked," A.J. started, releasing a little sigh that made him sound half as miserable as Anna felt. "I lost a game of beer pong inside, and I wasn't even drunk."

"Maybe you should consider _getting_ drunk," Anna joked, but it fell flat. "Kidding," she said with an apologetic smile.

"Teenagers are supposed to rebel and feel stronger for it, right?" A.J. asked with an exasperated shake of his head. "Cause, I mean, this all feels kinda lame."

Anna bobbed her eyebrows once in agreement. "Rebellion is overrated," she said. "It implies you have something to fight against. Being stupid is where it's at." And, honestly, when you surrendered to that stupidity, it did feel pretty good sometimes. She knew, because she and Kate had really had some fun before things fell apart. But she didn't tell A.J. that. She had no desire to give anybody anything like advice ever again.

A.J. laughed out loud, and his smile didn't fade when he stopped laughing. "You know, you're funny."

"Am I?" Anna asked with mock surprise.

A.J. just looked at her for a minute. "You know, what you said, though... It's not really true. Yeah, everybody here is being at least a little stupid. But I'm sure they've got reasons."

Anna rolled her eyes, "Reasons are excuses when you're being an idiot."

He didn't look her agreed, but the kid kept his mouth shut.

As the silence stretched between them and began to feel awkward, Anna found herself wishing for a beer again.

"Why'd you come tonight?"

"You mean, what's my excuse?" Anna asked with a little smirk. She couldn't tell if they were flirting, arguing, or just talking. Either way, this felt like a conversation she would have at school, not at Timber's _wicked bash_.

"If that's how you wanna think about it."

Anna sighed and stuck her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. For a moment, she resisted the urge to spill her guts. But she thought for a second, and she decided that the risk was low. She would never have to look this kid in the eyes again, and if she could get a little of her guilt off her chest while someone was willing to listen, maybe she would be able to think clearly enough to deal with this bullshit night afterward. 

"Don't get all pitiful about it," she began, "but my parents are both dead. Have been basically my whole life. So I have these two brothers. And they've raised me since I was seven. But really they've raised me since I was a baby. Our Dad was military. Real heroic type. They both kinda followed in his footsteps. But they work in... public service. Taking out threats." It was always fun seeing what came out of her mouth when she was put in a position to describe her family's work to a normal person. It didn't feel like a game tonight, though. It just felt like an added layer of deception.

"I'm sorry," A.J. said. "About your parents."

Anna nodded, having no desire to get into it. "Anyway, uh, they leave a lot for work which means I'm home alone pretty often. I've always felt kinda weird about them bossing me around and stuff. I mean, they're my brothers not my parents. But they're also all I have, so it's just seemed logical that they take on the role. But I'm older now. And with them leaving all the time, it's gotten complicated."

A.J. seemed to expect her to continue, but Anna felt she'd overshared, so she stayed quiet. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Anna shrugged. It took a minute, but she spilled again. "I just think... it's not fair that they want it both ways. It's not fair that they want to be gone all the time but also tell me what to do all the time. It's not fair that they won't let me join the family business and save people but I still have to deal with a lot of the crap that comes with that business. It's complicated. I don't know. The more I talk, the more I feel stupid for all of this. It's just the usual stupid rebellion with extra steps."

"No, I get it," A.J. said. "My mom is actually kinda like that, but it's different. My dad left when I was little. I mean, like, really little. I barely remember him. To make ends meet, my mom works two jobs, and I try to help where I can but I have school so I only work weekends and it doesn't help enough. I get resentful sometimes because she's not around and I have to work so hard. But she only works so much because she has to and, I mean, I should be grateful."

"Yeah," Anna agreed sullenly. "I should be grateful too."

"Sometimes I guess I just let the resentment take over. That's probably why I'm here, much fun as I'm having," he snorted to himself.

"Yeah," Anna said, unsure where to take the conversation from there. "Maybe it's just because knowing why doesn't make shit hurt less. I mean, I know my family doesn't want me to get hurt, but that doesn't change how I feel." God, how the hell had she gotten to this point, playing two-way therapy with a boy she'd never met? She'd come here to let loose, and things had slipped so far away from her.

"Yeah, you're right. Which means you were wrong before," A.J. quipped and then smirked like he thought he was being clever or cute or both. "We do have reasons. We feel alone."

Anna jerked her head to look at him with something sharp building in her eyes. "You don't know me, pal," she said darkly. "And I don't know you, so stop comparing us like we're so fucking _alike_." She realized how quickly her anger had escalated and how ill-tempered she must seem at this point. "I think I'm done with this conversation," she decided aloud and turned her head. But she didn't get up. She wanted him to be the one to walk away. She couldn't say why. Maybe it was just her usual stubbornness kicking in at a bad time.

When he didn't leave, she turned and could see surprise in A.J.'s face at the turn her mood-- and, subsequently, their conversation-- had taken. "You never feel alone?" he challenged anyway, his voice still soft and his eyes sincere.

Anna gazed at him with a deadened look in her eyes. She did feel alone. All the time. She couldn't breathe with it some days. The bunker was too big for one girl to occupy by herself, and days were too long for her to keep herself entertained, keep herself from thinking about just how empty her home was.

"Nope," she lied, popping the p so the words would come off as more casual and less like they were ripping her heart out of her chest. "Never."

"Fall Out Boy," A.J. said then.

"What?" Anna snapped her head in his direction at the sudden subject change.

"Fall Out Boy just started playing. You a fan?"

Anna snorted, but she felt a little less tense as she closed her eyes and listened for the lyrics past the drunken shouts of teenagers. The subject had finally changed, and her favorite band was playing. There'd never been a better time or place to ignore all the worst shit in her life, and she grinned and stood up, straightening her shirt and jacket.

_She says she's no good with words, but I'm worse._

_Barely stuttered out a joke of a romantic stuck to my tongue._

_Weighed down with words, too over dramatic._

_Tonight, it's 'It can't get much worse'._

_Versus no one should ever feel like._

"Alex!" somebody yelled from behind her, and Anna turned to see who it was. A blonde boy with two plastic cups in his hand was rushing toward them, eyes on A.J.

"So, not everybody calls you A.J.?" All she got was a shrug, but Anna didn't want to meet anybody else tonight. She wanted to go lose herself in the music, preferably with a beer in her hand, because _fuck it,_ maybe there was no salvaging this night _._

"Yo, Alex, there's this crazy chick inside playin' beer pong with wine glasses. Check it."

Anna grimaced and turned toward the house with a pit of dread in her stomach. It couldn't possibly be Kate, she told herself. Kate was smart and four or five beers couldn't change that. But there was an inexplicable knot in her gut telling her that it just might be Kate who'd just been described as a _crazy chick_.

When she stepped inside the house, she felt somebody nearly step on her heel and looked up behind her to see A.J. and his blonde friend were right behind her. She didn't know where to go to find this game of beer pong, but she didn't have to look far. In the middle of the front room, Kate stood behind a short red-haired girl, both focused intently on the game before them. They were both so drunk they couldn't move without stumbling.

"Dammit, Kate," she grouched, head spinning with renewed frustration.

"Maybe you should've stuck with your friend," A.J. said a little too judgmentally for Anna's liking. Not to mention, he'd defended her choices earlier more than Anna had felt was right, and he was changing his tune so completely that it disgusted her.

"Shut it," she snapped at him and then surged forward to somehow get Kate out of this before things managed to get ugly.

"Hey," the blonde kid argued, grabbing Anna by the arm.

"Don't touch me," Anna growled and shoved him away more roughly than intended. She was angry, but she definitely hadn't meant to take it out on him. She'd just wanted him to let go of her arm, but Blondie stumbled backward and bumped into another guy who had been in the process of pouring vodka into a cup. Blondie landed on the ground on his ass and Vodka Guy dropped both the bottle and cup upon impact, glass shattering and alcohol splashing up to soak several people's ankles and shoes. There were several shouts of indignation in the form of curse words, and Anna and A.J. breathed, "Oh my god," at the same time.

The room was hot and these people were intoxicated. It was a recipe for disaster. And, oh, but it brought disaster.

"You little cunt!" Vodka Guy yelled, then pounced on Blondie with a fist to the face.

"Woah, hey, don't look at me. That crazy bitch pushed me!" Blondie hollered frantically as he scrambled to get away from the angry guy he'd probably never met before this moment.

Anna's eyes widened a little as Vodka Guy's eyes tracked over to her. She let out a little nervous chuckle.

"You think that's fucking funny?! I spent twenty bucks on that shit. It was good stuff." The words mashed together in his drunkenness, but the threatening tone was loud and clear.

Quickly, Anna grew somber and shook her head, backing away from him before he'd even advanced on her. "A.J., get your buddy outta here," she requested, preparing herself for a fight she didn't want to partake in.

"You're gonna start a fight over an accident?" A.J. asked Vodka Guy.

"Twenty dollar vodka, Alex," was the dark and slurred reminder. "I di'n't start this."

On the ground, Blondie grinned and used one arm to sweep Vodka Guy's feet out from under him. He hit the ground hard and Anna sucked in a deep breath at the sight of it. "Stop, dude!" she yelled as Blondie move in like he was going to start throwing punches at Vodka Guy. "Stop!"

Blondie then turned a fiery glare on her. "You started this!" he yelled and then tackled Anna before she had the time to realize what he was doing.

Her head bounced off the ground as they landed, and then A.J. was pulling Blondie off her, but Vodka Guy had gotten back to his feet, and he shoved A.J. so that he could punch Blondie himself. What ensued included all three boys as well as the kids who'd been splashed when the vodka bottle shattered. All of them engaged in a full brawl, throwing punches and shoving one another and yelling things that didn't really make sense thanks to the alcohol in their systems.

"Motherfu-"

"Anna!" Kate appeared out of nowhere. She latched onto Anna's arm like she had come to rescue her friend, but she staggered so much that she was barely able to keep her feet under her.

Anna in turn grabbed Kate's upper arms and propelled them both out of the room, wincing bodily at the sound of glass breaking, wood cracking, and kids shouting and fighting. As they ran out the front door, Kate nearly face planted on the front steps, but Anna barely managed to keep her upright.

"We need to go _now_. Give me the keys. I'll drive us somewhere."

"Ca't drive," Kate yelled like she was annoyed.

Anna ignored her and just growled out her frustration. This was so not good. She'd started a freaking _brawl_. That had not been in the playbook tonight. She yanked Kate forward and pulled her through the crowd until they finally came out the other side. They crossed the road, and by the time they reached Kate's mom's car, Kate was unable to stay standing.

"How much did you drink?" Anna demanded, kneeling in the grass beside her as Kate fell onto her back, gazing wondrously up at the stars. "Katie!"

"Sh't uuuup! S'pretty."

"Kate, just tell me how much you drank." There was no reply as Kate blinked slowly, staring at the night sky as if she'd never seen it before. Anna's breathing picked up as she started to panic. She couldn't drive well at all, let alone legally, and she didn't know the way back to Lebanon anyway. She couldn't get them out of here but they couldn't stay. Somehow, Kate would get into more trouble. Or Anna would. "I need to know what to do. I don't know what to do." She covered her face with both hands, trying to come up with a coherent thought. At least trying to breathe for a second. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to _do._

"'Na."

"What?" she asked, leaning frantically over Kate. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Across the road, there was yelling, and Anna looked up to see another fight beginning on the outskirts of the lawn. At least she wasn't the only one starting fights tonight. She turned back to Kate and took in her pale and slightly green appearance.

"You okay?" she asked urgently again. She didn't know what to look for to know if somebody had too much to drink. She knew a hundred first aid tips, but not this one. She wasn't supposed to drink, so she didn't know. She didn't know what to do. "Kate!"

"St'p _yelling_." Anna threw her hands up in the air and then ran them through her hair, trying to think of something, anything to do that would make things better. "G'n be sick."

"What?" She heaved Kate onto her side and clenched her eyes shut as her friend started puking. " _Fuck!_ " Anna yelled, at the end of her rope.

Vomiting was bad. Vomiting was very bad. She didn't know how much Kate'd had after they parted ways. But there had been much stronger drinks than beer inside and Kate had been in there for at least ten or fifteen minutes before Anna showed up and managed to make things worse inside of a few minutes.

Kate just kept throwing up, getting her clothes covered in puke and making a huge, messy brown puddle in the grass.

Anna gagged at the sight and scent, turning away to keep from throwing up herself. "I don't know what to do, Kate," she admitted, breathing fast again. "I don't know what to do." What if Kate had alcohol poisoning? What if she had alcohol poisoning and it was all Anna's fault? "Kate!" she yelled as her friend flopped onto her back in the grass and her eyes slid mostly shut. "Okay, I have to- I have to do something," she said to herself rather unhelpfully. "I'm calling Dean, Kate."

"No!" Kate yelled with surprisingly clarity as she shot upright. It took half a second for her to fall in the grass again. "No. 'M a mess."

"Exactly!" Anna yelled back, her hands shaking as she pulled her phone out of her pocket.

"You w'd'n lemme call."

"What?" Anna asked, pausing with her finger over Dean's name in her contacts.

"You w'd'n lemme 'f it was- was you."

"Well, maybe I just care more about you gettin' out of here okay than me," she said, resisting the urge to yell as Kate coughed and leaned over, nearly landing in her own puke. "Stay awake, Kate," she pleaded, trying to breathe even as she listened to the phone ring on her fate. She needed help, and calling her family was the only way to get that help but... in doing this, she was majorly screwing herself and Kate over.

"Selfish!" Kate spat from the grass, squinting at Anna, chin wobbling.

_She's drunk_ , Anna told herself, squeezing her eyes shut. _She's drunk. She's drunk. She's drunk._ Dean's phone rang again.

" _Hang up!_ "

"No!" Anna yelled back.

"You aw'ys do this."

"Kate-"

" _Hey, Rugrat. What's up?_ "

Anna breathed a sigh of relief that was cut right off as Kate glared through glazed eyes at her and said words that couldn't be taken back. "I hate you." She promptly passed out, leaving Anna shell-shocked and hurt. Her eyes welled with tears as she stared at Kate's limp body.

" _Anna?_ "

"S-sorry. Yeah." She swallowed hard, her stomach twisting in knots. "I kinda need help."

" _What's going on?_ " Dean asked, voice immediately all business. He sounded calm and in control and Anna latched onto it, taking it as permission to panic because she wasn't in charge of taking care of anything anymore.

"It's really hard to explain but... Kate's drunk. Really drunk. Like puke and pass out drunk. And I don't know what to do," the words fell out of her in jumbles. Her panic was audible, and she grabbed Kate's hand, cold with the night air, even though she'd just been hit by words of steel from this kid.

" _Alright, breathe. Slow down. You said Kate is drunk?_ "

"Really drunk," Anna affirmed, squeezing her unconscious friend's hand. Maybe Kate hated her, but she wouldn't let her go without making sure she was okay first.

" _She threw up?_ "

"Yeah, and passed out."

There was a short pause and Anna could hear movement over the line like Dean was getting his jacket and keys. He already knew they'd done something stupid or Kate wouldn't be this drunk, but the real moment of truth was just a minute or two away and Anna was terrified. " _See if you can wake her up. We're on our way._ "

"'Kay, but Dean?"

" _What?_ "

Anna clenched her eyes shut and took a deep breath. "We're not at Kate's house."

Dean's, " _What?_ " this time was much slower and lethal. " _Where are you?_ "

"We're in Great Bend. Just outside of it actually." It wasn't so much farther than Kate's house, but it was definitely a longer drive. From Lebanon, Timber's house would have been a forty minute drive. From Kate's place, it was thirty minutes. From the bunker, it was only about twenty minutes. But twenty minutes seemed like an eternity now.

" _You're in Great Bend, why exactly?_ "

"We're at a party. Look, tear into me later. Just tell me what to do."

" _Alright, I'll have Sam map it. Can you wake Kate up?_ " he asked, audibly forcing himself to remain calm rather than getting pissed.

Anna held the phone down away from her face and leaned over Kate, shaking her. "Katie, wake up. Kate. Kate!" With a jolt, Kate came awake again, but she was groaning and pushing at the hand Anna patted her face with. "She's awake."

" _Alright that's good. She doesn't have alcohol poisoning. Keep her away from alcohol and stay out of trouble._ "

"Okay."

" _Looks like it's twenty minutes but we'll make it in fifteen. You be okay for that long?_ "

"Yeah. Dean?"

" _Yeah?_ "

"Thank you."

()()()

When the boys arrived, they were anything but inconspicuous. Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised, but Anna still looked up in shock when she heard a familiar rumbling engine shortly before Sam and Dean yelled "Police!"

Panic ensued. Across the road, people scattered, dropping their drinks and shoving each other to get to their cars and go. Anna pulled Kate to her feet and dragged her toward the Impala which was parked haphazardly in the middle of the road. She didn't dwell on the notion that half the people running to their cars were far too drunk to be driving.

She just got to her family, watched them get Kate situated in the back, and climbed in after. The silence was deafening for the next twenty minutes.

()()()

In her room, Anna paced in a nearly perfect straight line from her bedroom door to her bureau on the other side of the room. Wooden door. Wooden dresser. Wooden door. Wooden dresser. Wooden door. Wooden dresser. Racing mind. Racing heart. Wooden door. Wooden dresser. Wooden girl. Reliable enough, but with a blazing weak spot that could turn her swiftly to ash. Or a straw girl. One big weak spot, no strengths.

Anna sighed so loudly it could have been heard from the library if both her brothers hadn't gone to take Kate home and help explain things to her mother. As it were, Anna was completely alone, and stuck in her room because leaving would result in certain death if Dean's angry, _"Stay put if you know what's good for you_ ," followed by the door slamming shut in her face was anything to go on.

Anna released another heavy breath, but it wasn't a sigh this time so much as it was an effort to keep from crying. A straw girl. She was a straw girl. A straw girl living among men of steel. How had she ever expected to measure up?

All she really wanted was to be a Winchester through and through. Winchesters are hunters. If she couldn't leave behind that side of her that came from Chloe, then how could she ever expect to be a real Winchester? How could she expect to be seen as or to feel like anything more than half-Winchester?

She couldn't help wondering about that in the dead of night sometimes, in the darkest corner of her mind. The word danced tauntingly and smiled smugly at her as she bit her lip and curled her knees to her chest. _Half-breed_ , her brain would whisper, because a whisper was enough to make her whimper and clamp her hands over her ears. Then the syllables would reach her anyway, because they were inside her head. _Half-breed_. More words would join once that one had torn away her armor. _Burden_ was her brain's second favorite. Then there was the word _baby_ , forever frustrating and sometimes painful. The one that had nearly caused her to drop out of school. Was she always going to be the baby? If she didn't find a way to pull herself out of the zone, her brain would keep mocking her. Useless, helpless, self-pitying. Not smart enough, not strong enough, not fast enough, not ready to be a hunter, never ready to be one of them. Alone. Forever maybe.

Sometimes, she would reach this point and pick up her phone. Text Claire. Text Kate. Somebody who was in a position to understand how hard it was to be this unsure of your place. Sometimes she would even dare to turn to one of her perfect, intelligent, strong, and _caring_ brothers, and she would let them teach her how to breathe again. She always had to pretend she didn't know what had made her feel like that, though.

Still, sometimes, Anna would just sit in it. She would feel her breathing speed up, her heart beating nearly out of her chest, and she would curl up with her back to her bedroom door, just in case Sam or Dean came looking for her, and she would cry or she wouldn't, but she would _feel_. She would let the sadness surround her. She would let herself feel alone and burdensome and wrong and stupid and she would just stay there until she fell asleep or she couldn't cry anymore or somebody called her name and she had no choice but to brush herself off and hide that she'd been crying. Sometimes, she didn't want to be comforted. Sometimes, she wanted to look the truth in the face and let it hurt her for a minute, or a hundred minutes.

Sometimes, she wanted to feel like she was strong enough to recognize how weak she was, smart enough to recognize how stupid she was, and old enough to cope with how hard it was to be young by herself. But she was kidding herself every time. She wasn't strong enough. She was just weak, and that was why she cried at the knowledge of just how weak she was. She wasn't smart enough. Why else would she still make choices like the ones she'd made this weekend? Knowing you're stupid doesn't make you any less stupid. She certainly wasn't old enough to cope with anything, or she wouldn't hide in her own sadness just because it said, "Welcome home." It was just so tempting sometimes, to see all the pain she knew so well and to curl up in it, to feel it because she was comfortable in it.

There was nothing she knew better than her own worst nightmare. There was nothing that knew her better either.

Maybe it would be okay to step inside that bubble of aches and sorrows if not for the fact that it wasn't any real company. Anna could feel it wrapping around her as she kicked a foot out and hit the leg of her bed in sudden frustration, but she knew still that she was alone in it. Nobody could understand. Nobody could hope to understand. And that enraged her as much as it cut her open. So she flung her arm sideways and knocked a textbook off her desk. She reveled in the crash of it against the floor. Fuck World History. Nobody in the history of the world had been through Anna Winchester's life. There were no coping strategies for the half-Winchester baby sister that couldn't handle a night unsupervised without ruining everything that had ever been good about her life.

The rage inside her boiled and spit heat and Anna grabbed her desk chair and threw it. It hit the wall and rattled everything, and she didn't even take the time to see what it was that fell and audibly shattered. Nobody understood. Nobody could understand. She wanted to rip her door off its hinges or punch a hole in the wall, but everything was too solid. Everything but her knew how to stand on its own, indestructible and independent and _strong_. But Anna, who was supposed to be a _Winchester_ \-- by default, one of the strongest human beings to ever walk the Earth-- couldn't even spend two days alone. She couldn't even be left alone with her own mind for thirty seconds. She couldn't handle herself. How could she handle the world? How could she be a hunter? How could she be anything? Any _one_? Why couldn't she grow up? Why couldn't anybody tell her how to _grow up_?

She grabbed the lamp off her bedside table and threw it on the floor. But when it smashed, Anna still wasn't satisfied. Nobody could tell her how to grow up because nobody had been where she was. Nobody. Nobody could understand because she was alone in her experience of the world. She was alone in this bunker, alone in her life, alone in the damn _world_. And here she was feeling sorry for herself again because that was the most _unfair_ life sentence. What God had ruled Anna a half-hunter half-kid half-Winchester half-everything and expected her to turn out alright? Was she ever _supposed_ to turn out alright? Had there ever been a chance that she walk out the other side a full human being? Or was she supposed to be this confused and hurt and unjustifiably angry? Was she supposed to be alone but not independent, and this hurt but not a victim, and this insane but not clinically so? Was she supposed to be so stupidly naive but too smart to ignore her own shortcomings, so excitable for stupid parties and temporary escapes but too much of a realist not to come crashing back down the second the fun was over, and so unbearably loyal as to throw herself into the fire but never capable enough to pull herself out again?

She'd bailed Kate out of something bad this weekend, and she'd wrecked herself in the process. But if Anna was honest with herself for _one second_ instead of denying all of her mistakes all the time... maybe she would have to face the fact that she hadn't gone to Timber's party for Kate. She'd done it for herself. Because she was tired and stressed and looking for a way to let loose and blow off some steam. Maybe the opportunity just came at a convenient time. Maybe if she were a good friend, she would have just told Kate not to do something that made her uncomfortable just to help her father stay in denial. But Anna was not a good friend. She didn't know how to care about anybody but herself. She didn't tell Kate to refuse to go to a crazy bash because Anna didn't want to miss the opportunity to get sloppy drunk, listen to loud music that she knew all the words to, and stop caring about anything and everything for a night. Even if it didn't turn out that way, Anna couldn't stand to let herself deny for another minute that it had still been her reason. She was selfish like that. She always had been. And it wasn't _fair_.

So she tore the sheets off her bed and used one arm to sweep all the contents off her desk and she finally punched the wall even though it was made of stone or concrete or something equally unforgiving and unbreakable. She hit it once with her bare knuckles and then once again and then she couldn't stop because as much as it hurt, it didn't invade her brain past the ringing in her ears and it felt like she was finally forcing all her anger into a gratifying action. So Anna beat the wall like it was the yellow-eyed demon that broke her brothers' family, effectively letting John Winchester chase revenge, eventually meet Chloe, and, ultimately, bring Anna into this harsh, broken, and cruel world.

And now?

Now Kate, Sam, and Dean were all justifiably pissed off at Anna, and she was alone not only in her pain, her anger, and her self-hatred, but in everything. Goodbye, Bestie. Goodbye, Brothers. Anna had officially fucked up the few good things she'd had going for her because she was a little concerned about her place in her family. And there was no excuse for that. No amount of confusion, naivety, fear, or pain could explain away this night.

That realization turned off the faucet of her anger. Anna froze. Her right hand dripped blood and fell limply from the wrist down. No doubt, she'd done some damage, but that wasn't even registering. Her body was so full of endorphins, her psychological pain easily took the front seat over her physical pain. The bloody, throbbing knuckles and fingers were not her reason for ceasing to punch her bedroom wall.

But Anna had stopped being angry. She had no right. There was no excuse on her end. There was no way for her to make everything right. There was no way for her to ask to get back everything she'd broken and thrown away. There was just pain and confusion and hurt relationships. And Anna couldn't face any of it. So she mentally shrugged. What was one more mistake to regret tomorrow or next year or on her deathbed, alone?

She snatched her backpack from beneath her desk with her left hand. Her right hurt so bad it made her head spin. But her head had been spinning all night, so it wasn't enough to stop her. She dropped her backpack on her bed, mind no longer racing, just dully pounding out waves of pain just as the broken bones did inside her hand.

She used her left hand to tilt her backpack sideways and all of her school supplies tumbled out onto the floor. She could take her duffel-- it was always packed and ready-- but that would make it too obvious to the boys when they got back that she'd really gone away for good. Anna needed as much of a head start as she could get, especially because she couldn't drive and would have to go on foot. _How's that for not taking the bus, Dean?_

There were clothes on the floor, glass decorating them from the many, many things she'd smashed in her unreasonable and irrational rampage from moments before. But Anna didn't take those. She slammed open her desk drawer and reached into the back with her unharmed hand to pull out the small wad of bills she'd been saving since she was a kid. She'd never intended to need it for a thing like this. She'd always thought of buying a car or a motorcycle or something equally as cool and expensive. Truthfully, she'd never made any real plans for the money. But she'd always been dedicated to saving it and adding to it.

Thoughtlessly, Anna shoved it into the front pocket of her backpack and moved to her bureau which was, surprisingly, still standing. On top of it rested her journal, meager as it was, a few bracelets, rings, and necklaces, a small stack of photos, and her favorite canvas jacket.

Anna shed the leather jacket she was wearing to throw on the canvas one. She used her throbbing right hand to sweep the contents of the bureau into her backpack, somehow managing not to let anything fall to the floor, and dropped the bag to the ground so she could use her left hand to stuff clothes into it. Not much would fit, but she put in two pairs of jeans, a few t-shirts, a sweater, and some socks, bras, and underwear. It wasn't much, but it would do.

She flung the backpack over her left shoulder and had just gotten to her bedroom door when it swung open, nearly hitting her in the face. As clogged as her brain was with messy feelings and uncontrollable self-deprecating thoughts, fear still managed to claw its way to the forefront as she faced a 6'2" wall of older brother. And one thought trickled to the front of her mind. _Could I have incriminated myself more, trying to run away the second they left me alone?_

Judgement day had arrived, and things didn't look good for her.

"Where you goin'?" Dean asked, deceptively calm as he stepped inside the door and invaded her personal space, standing toe to toe with her. He looked right down at her, and Anna couldn't stand it, so she looked right at the floor and didn't care about how small it made her feel to stand so weakly under his scrutiny.

Half a person. Half a person made of straw.

"I asked you a question."

It wasn't anything like the voice he used to interrogate persons of interest on their cases. It was calm but not dangerously so. It was angry but not overwhelmingly so. It was threatening but barely. It was gentle. It was Dean as a brother, not a hunter, and Anna hated it that Dean could be so good at being so many things while she fumbled to even be one thing, to be _half_ of one thing. Half a girl made of straw.

But Dean had never called her half of anything. Nor had Sam. To them, Anna was Anna. Baby sister. Stubborn and a little angry for all the right reasons. Smart but naive in her youth. Curious, sometimes to a point of confusion and frustration over things that shouldn't seem so important. Sarcastic and quick witted and introverted but not overtly shy or timid. Loyal to a fault. Patient when it mattered. It was all too generous, but it was all things that Anna had listened to them say about her before. Maybe they didn't believe any of it, but they'd said all of it.

Against her better judgement, Anna let this newly rising turmoil flick on her go-to defense mechanism. "And I stared at the floor," she quipped dryly, but she couldn't keep the flat and emotive exhaustion out of her voice. "Pretty easy social cue to read."

Dean just hmphed instead of getting beyond angry like Anna had expected. He glanced over her head at the room behind her. "Had a little after party here?"

Anna stared with increasingly teary but bitter eyes at her brother as he gazed around her room, seeing all the damage she'd done. "You can say the word tantrum," she told him. It was meant to sound self-deprecating and angry, but it just sounded sad. "I won't throw another one."

Dean gave her a strange look and stepped around her to further survey the room. A little snort of dry laughter could be heard, but Anna didn't turn her head. She didn't move at all. She felt the heavy, dull thuds of pain emanate from her hand up her wrist, seemingly all the way to her shoulder. It was enough to make her teeth chatter, but she clamped down on it, biting down on her bottom lip so no noise would come out.

"Give me the bag."

Her left hand curled into a fist at her side. She didn't want to run anyway. Or at least, that was what she told herself as she let the bag slide off her left shoulder into her hand. She thrust it at her brother, and Dean took it with care. He unzipped it, and his first glance inside clearly told him what he needed to know as he tossed it over onto her bed without another look.

"So, you been planning this for a while, or was it just a spur of the moment thing?"

"Which part?" Anna asked in a near-whisper. "The tantrum was preconceived, but the running away thing and the party thing both just kinda happened."

"Cut the crap," Dean finally snapped. He stepped back toward her, and Anna hadn't even turned from the doorway yet, but she could hear the crunch of glass under his boots as he walked over to her. His gait was fast-paced. He was finished playing this game of back and forth. "I know you know you screwed up big time, alright? So just take it easy, because I'm not about to rip your head off or anything."

"You should."

"Maybe I should," Dean admitted after a short pause. "But I'm not going to. I just want to talk to you. And since your bedroom is apparently a warzone now..." he trailed off with a small smirk, but Anna was anything but amused.

"Stop going easy on me," she requested in the same quiet and flat voice she'd adopted when her brother walked in.

She wanted to tell him to hit her or something. She'd beaten on the wall in her room and still felt like total shit, so maybe it would help if somebody else hit _her_? Maybe it would even make him feel better too. But Dean wouldn't. All he knew was how to protect. He wouldn't hit Sam unless forced into it to protect him from worse harm. Anna, he would never hit. She was still a kid. The last thing Dean would do is hurt a kid. Let alone his kid sister. Didn't make her wish to get punched any less, though, and relieve a little of her guilt.

"Come on. We're gonna talk in the library. Sam's waiting." He stepped gingerly around the broken glass and books on the floor and gave Anna a nudge out the door.

"I don't... Can't you just deck me or something?"

"That is the furthest thing from funny," was Dean's deadly serious response. He seemed to be abandoning his excessive calm in favor of getting stern. But he still wasn't getting angry and it made Anna angry. He was supposed to hate her. He was supposed to be pissed. "I would never hurt you. You know that."

She did know that. That was the problem.

"Library," Dean repeated.

Anna went willingly, flinching bodily when her bloody hand brushed against the doorframe. Fortunately for her, Dean was looking back at the mess in her room and didn't notice her pained flinch. The last thing she wanted was for somebody to have to save her one more time tonight, especially from herself.

Sam was bouncing his leg under the table, and that was the first thing Anna noticed when she walked in. When he saw her, the jittering stopped, and he stood up, then sat back down, looking her over silently. He frowned a little and Anna followed his gaze sullenly to see him looking at her hand. She tucked it against her stomach and covered it carefully with her other hand, effectively hiding it from view. In tides, pain crashed through her hand. But she knew better than to think that could be priority right now.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked. Surely, he'd had a very specific meaning in mind when he proffered the question. But it could have meant anything as far as Anna was concerned.

What happened to that little girl who played I Spy and had pretty dreams? What happened to the kid who apologized for so much as looking at one of them without total respect? What happened to the girl who reluctantly trusted her family to make the right call, even if she didn't always like that call? What happened to the Anna they knew. Baby sister, stubborn, loyal, patient, etc.

"Which part?" Anna asked, trying to look alive though she felt none of it. She had two options at this point. Get weepy and apologetic and spill her guts-- a path she had no patience for-- or be unremorseful and be the teenager who made bad choices tonight and leave it at that. When you're raising a teenager, rebellion comes with the territory. Anna figured they'd accept that much. She wondered if all 'rebellion' was founded on the kind of pain she felt.

After all, she didn't like MCR because it was loud enough to make her ears bleed. She liked it because sometimes the lyrics hit just right, or the base kicked in at the perfect moment, or the pain in her mind was loud enough to call for loud music and turning up the volume to her headphones until _The Light Behind Your Eyes_ threatened to render her deaf was the only way to counter the pain's blaring volume. She didn't like her leather jacket because she thought it looked cool or dark. She liked it because it cloaked her. It made her into a specific something to everyone who looked at her, meaning she had no obligation to be anybody. She didn't hate Dean for making her ride the bus. She didn't hate Dean at all. She was angry, sure. But she was angry because she knew that she would never add up.

A straw girl in a world of needles. It was bass-ackwards.

"Your hand," Sam said. "It's all messed up. What'd you do to it? Was it alright earlier?" He sounded guilty, like he was afraid they'd been too angry before to notice there was something wrong with her. But there'd been something wrong with Anna for going on a year now. Or maybe her whole life. They seemed to determine to deny that she was selfish, stupid, and weak, though, so she knew better than to think that was what Sam was talking about.

"You hurt your hand?" Dean asked. She was guided into a chair without really being aware of it. Her arm was manipulated so that her hand could lay flat on the table, and Anna barely felt the twitch by her mouth as the throb of pain in her hand kicked up a few notches. "How the hell did you do this?"

Anna shrugged evasively and stared at the darkening bruises and blood on her hand.

There was clear frustration on both their faces at how withdrawn she suddenly was. But it was her way to shut down, and they both knew that too. They knew better than she did. Anna just felt increasingly distant from them. She was purposely trying to siphon off the negative thoughts that flooded her brain and just stop thinking altogether. She just wanted to take the lectures she knew they had planned, hear her punishment, and go to bed or go to California or melt into the floor. She just wanted to stop feeling for a minute and stop thinking for the rest of her life. She was no good at it anyway if tonight was any indication.

"I think you broke half your fingers," Sam said distractedly as he gently lifted and bent each one.

Anna didn't say react to the news. She didn't need him to tell her what was wrong with her hand. She'd wailed on a wall for a minute or two straight. Of course her fingers were broken and her knuckles bruised. But she was out of patience for her stupid hand, so she pulled it away, trying to ignore the astounding pain that greeted her movement.

"Forget the hand. You want to talk, and I'm here. So talk." She didn't look up at either of them, but she could feel them both looking at her.

"Well, that kinda starts with you, don't you think?" Sam began cautiously.

Anna shook her head. "You know what happened. Do your thing. Talk."

"I told you, kid; we know you know you screwed up. How is us sitting here telling you _how_ you screwed up, like you don't already know, gonna make that better?" Dean challenged.

Anna didn't answer. It wasn't gonna make anything better. But it might make her feel less guilty. And it might make them all feel like something had been resolved. What more did anybody need? It would be an excuse to pretend everything was fine and therefore an excuse not to talk about anything. Sounded great to her.

"We could wait until morning, if you want. I mean, it's almost two a.m., and you haven't really slept all week. But the conversation is gonna happen regardless. You're just putting off the inevitable."

"Well, if you don't want to talk about my royal fuck-up, then what do you want to talk about?" Anna asked stand-offishly and like she didn't already know. Normally, this would be the point where she crossed her arms over her chest defensively, but with her hand aching as it was, that wasn't an option.

"We've known Kate since she was thirteen. She's not the type to get sloppy drunk. But let me tell you, it was not that surprising to find out she talks _a lot_ when she's wasted."

"Talks about her dad's whore, her dad's whore's kid, or her dad's whore's kid's favorite kind of tequila?" It was all the least charitable, coldest way of speaking about Kate's predicament, but Anna wasn't feeling particularly kind tonight. She certainly didn't feel like listening to Dean beat around the bush. And, secretly, she kinda enjoyed the way he started to look angry at hearing her talk like that. But that was what was wrong with her, so Anna quickly started to feel guilty rather than satisfied.

"She talked about her dad a little," Dean said, apparently determined not to lose his cool. As much as people liked to call him hot-headed, Dean had gotten _very good_ at controlling his temper over the years. He was easy to anger, but he was also good at maintaining control. Sam was not quick to anger, but he was quick to let that anger take control. "She talked about you, mostly."

"Well, she doesn't get mad at me that often. Bet she had years worth of grievances saved up," Anna muttered and absently scratched at some dried blood on the back of her right hand. It hurt. Everything did.

"She's not mad at you."

"That's funny," Anna said humorlessly. "Last thing she said to me was _I hate you_ , so-" She cut herself off and ground the heels of her feet into the ground until her sneakers squeaked. She wanted to run now.

It was her first sign of honest and unhidden vulnerability since they picked the girls up at Timber's house, and Sam latched onto it. "She's drunk," he reassured. "People say things when they're drunk that they don't mean."

"Or they say things when they're drunk that they're afraid to say when they're sober."

"Or they get pissed because they made a bad choice and you called them on it."

"Oh _she_ made a bad choice," Anna said disbelievingly, then scoffed. "I'm the one who told her she should party like there's no tomorrow. Unfortunately, she partied like there's _literally_ no tomorrow."

"And you bailed her out."

"Stop forgetting the part where I dragged her in," Anna demanded with more force in her voice than she'd had all night. "And I handed her the first drink. And I somehow managed to be the reason two idiots got in a fistfight."

"And all of that is something we'll be talking about tomorrow-- or I guess, today, technically," Sam assured her. "But this grim look in your eyes right now, Anna, it's freaking me out. It's freaking _us_ out. So what's going on?"

"Thought you said Kate spilled," Anna stalled, picking once more at the blood drying on her hand. It ached and burned in waves of ambiguity. Everything did.

"She talked a lot. But she was drunk. And like Sam said, people don't always mean what they say when they're drunk. So it's your turn."

Anna took a second to glance between them. They were both staring at her with an intensity she didn't care for. And there was one way out. Explain. So Anna returned to an old defense mechanism; she got sarcastic. "You want me to psychoanalyze myself now? I'm sixteen. I went to a party. Put the pieces together. You guys are supposed to be smart." They were smart. The smartest people she knew.

"Let me remind you that you're skatin' on thin ice," Dean warned, leaning forward just enough to drive his point home.

Anna bucked up a little, but she felt more stand-offish than compliant. She _was_ on thin ice. But not just with these two. With Kate. With herself. Her entire life had been spent on thin ice. Didn't they see that? Half a girl, made of straw, skating on thin ice.

"What do you want me to say? It was a lapse in judgement."

"Mhm," Dean looked at her, unimpressed. "And a couple more lapses in judgement. And deliberate lying among other things. So you can either spit out a damn good reason for everything that happened tonight, or you can deal with the consequences of all those broken rules."

Anna bristled at being spoken to like a little kid. "Stop _acting_ like you're in charge of me!

"Acting," Dean repeated, looking at her with both eyebrows raised in challenge. Then he glowerd at her. "How's this for acting: You're grounded!"

"Yeah, what else is new?" Anna stood up, shoving her chair back as she did so. "I'm stuck here all the time anyway."

"You know, you could show a little more concern," Sam chimed in from the other side of the table. He was looking at her in that way Anna had always hated, the way that said he knew her and he knew more than she wanted him to know. It was a look of curiosity, inquiry, and determination all rolled into one. It was a dangerous look, more dangerous than one of Dean's lethal glares. "You're not exactly in a position to be arguing with anybody considering you broke every single one of the few rules we've got for you."

"Oh my god. Stop talking about rules for five seconds. I'm not a kid."

"You are under eighteen. You _are_ a kid."

"Don't get semantic. I'm not a fucking kid!"

"You watch the way you talk to us."

"Oh come off it."

Dean's eyes nearly popped out of his skull at her unanticipated and unconcerned reply. His shock turned rapidly to anger, though, as he stepped forward, towering over her. "What did you just say?"

"I said _come off it_."

"I don't know what the hell has gotten into you all of a sudden. You were _fine_ before you left for school this morning. But-" The rage that took over his face when Anna interrupted him normally would have silenced her, but it didn't this time.

"I was _not_ fine this morning. I'm never fine. You just never _fucking_ _listen_!" She stormed out of the room, curls bouncing over her shoulders in a wave of pale blonde, and went back to the bedroom she'd deemed a disaster area. Maybe her words had shut down her brothers' argument more effectively than expected or maybe she'd just been so loud and angry that they were surprised into silence. Whatever the reason, there was no effort to stop her.

It was nearly one in the morning when Anna closed her bedroom door with a soft click instead of slamming it like they were probably expecting. She already regretted blowing up, however deserved she felt it was. She felt worse knowing that the conversation she'd just ended-- rather messily, at that-- had begun with what was probably an invitation for her to explain all the emotional turmoil she was feeling. The problem was, Anna just didn't know how to do that without making things weird or getting pitiful looks from anybody. As sure as she was that they could have pulled out all the right words to tell her why she didn't need to feel alone or angry or scared or _whatever_... she wasn't sure she wanted to hear all those words.

With that thought, a realization hit her like a bombshell. She didn't want to hear those words because she knew she didn't deserve to hear them. They would be an attempt to make her feel better about something she didn't deserve to feel better about. They would relieve her of guilt she knew she should be bearing. They would promise what couldn't be promised and fix what shouldn't-- or maybe couldn't-- be fixed.

Her bed was devoid of pillows which she'd chucked across the room in her rampage. But the sheets were still there. Anna laid down flat on her back, felt her hand throb in time with her heartbeat, and pretended it was that physical pain that made her eyes burn like she was looking into a funeral pyre. Funeral pyres. They would always remind her of her father, and they did now as well. Her stomach clenched even tighter and she began to cry. He would hate her. He would hate what she'd become. She wasn't a hunter, was disobedient and rebellious and stubborn. She was wrong. She was half a person, half a Winchester.

Half a girl, made of straw, skating on thin ice, and tonight... the ice had finally cracked.

()()()

She woke ever so slightly to the sound of her door creaking open, but Anna rolled over and went back to sleep, barely registering the pain in her hand as she re-entered the world of the unconscious.

The second time she woke, she was on her back and her phone was ringing. But it was ringing with just anybody's tone. It was Kate, which Anna knew the second she heard _Billie Jean_ playing out loud in her otherwise quiet bedroom. As she picked her phone up, she glanced at the time and surprised to see that it was after ten in the morning. She never slept this late, even on Saturdays. Of all times for her family to be generous and not wake her up by eight, Anna was shocked that they would choose today. She was even more shocked when she realized that her right hand had been bandaged at some point while she was sleeping. So somebody had been in here and taken care of her hand but not woken her to start yelling again. Weird.

Pushing all this out of her mind, Anna stared at her phone screen and felt her stomach fill up with dread. Kate calling could mean she felt bad about what happened, or it could mean she didn't remember what happened, or it could mean she was still angry and was calling to rip Anna's head off some more. Anna had no idea which to expect as she reluctantly accepted the call and pressed her phone to her ear.

"Hey," she greeted shyly.

" _Hey,_ " Kate's equally timid voice returned. It was quiet for a little while. " _I don't remember a lot,_ " Kate admitted cautiously. " _But I know I was stupid last night. And my mom said she got a call from Dean and... well, she said a lot of stuff._ "

"She's not the only pissed off..." Except she didn't know how to finish that. Parent? Her whole rebellious attitude yesterday had been built on the fact that the boys were not her parents but still acted like they were. "I'm in hot water too, Kate. But, look, I just want to say I'm sorry. I mean, you were right about a lot of the stuff you said."

" _Anna,_ " Kate cut her off before she could start listing her failures. " _I don't remember that much about what I said last night. But the stuff I do remember? You were being responsible and trying to get me to not be a moron and..._ "

"Role reversal from the usual, I know. I had no right to tell you what you should be doing, Katie. I mean, you were right. I do this shit all the time. I act really stupid but I don't want you to do the same. But it's not because I think you don't deserve to have fun. It's because I know you're better than that. You're more responsible and smart and... I don't know... _good_ than I am and I don't want you to change because of me-- because we're friends."

" _Can you shut up for a second?_ "

"Sorry."

" _No. I was wrong to say everything I apparently said last night, A. You're, like, the smartest person I've ever met. I'm sorry I ever dragged you into that party with me at all._ "

"You didn't drag me. I mean, I orchestrated well over half our plan."

" _That's cause you're an evil genius_ ," Kate quipped, and Anna laughed.

"You don't hate me."

" _Never._ "

"Cool."

" _Stay perfect_ ," Kate said softly.

"You too."

She should have felt better. But the absolution of guilt made her regret soar. And then the door opened.

Anna didn't know what she was expecting, but Sam walking in looking like he thought he might get shot any minute, holding Anna's favorite mug full of coffee was certainly not something she would have banked on.

"Peace offering," he said with a careful little smile.

Anna raised an eyebrow, "Shouldn't I be the one groveling?"

"Matter's still up for debate," Sam allowed, stepping inside her badly damaged bedroom. "So, I hadn't seen it yet but, uh, looks like you did a number on this place."

"Yeah, I'll clean it up," she promised, not looking at him, but instead staring at her lap. She was still wearing ripped jeans, a t-shirt, and a cargo jacket, and she'd never taken off her shoes, but apparently Dean had removed them for her, because she was no longer wearing them.

"Here." Anna graciously accepted the cup of coffee Sam offered and watched as he righted her desk chair and sat on it to face her. She sure as hell wasn't about to make the first attempt at a conversation she wished she could avoid, so she waited until Sam said something. It didn't take long. "So, about last night..."

"I know it was stupid. I'm grounded. It's fine. Can we let it go now?"

"I'm not talking about the party. Or Kate. I'm talking about what you said in the library when we tried to talk to you."

Anna didn't point out how much of an interrogation that had felt like rather than a conversation. She just swallowed hard once at the realization that he'd taken to heart what she'd said. "I was just being overdramatic," she said, hoping for a swift end to this discussion.

Sam was not easily deterred, though. "We both know you weren't."

"Okay. Well, I wish I hadn't said it. Good enough?"

"I'm not asking you to apologize, Anna. I'm asking you to tell me what you meant."

Gentle requests for answers... Anna couldn't help but think that if Sam had taken the lead last night instead of Dean, their little interrogation would have gone more smoothly. Then again, she'd been so overwhelmed, exhausted, and emotionally frantic last night that she likely would have responded just as sarcastically to a _Tell me about tonight_ as she had to a _What the hell were you thinking_.

"And if I don't want to talk about it?" Anna tried, staring straight ahead instead of daring to turn her gaze in Sam's direction. She could feel him looking at her, though, and she hated it.

"Then I'll ask again tonight. Or tomorrow."

So the conversation was inevitable. Anna braced herself and took a long sip of her black coffee. She could feel it clear her head almost immediately and settle warmly in her stomach. "What, specifically, are you asking?" she asked hesitantly.

Sam straightened a little in his chair and watched her reaction. "Uh, specifically, you know what I'm talking about." When Anna steadfastly remained silent, he added, "You don't yell like that. So when you do, it kinda gives the impression that you've been keeping that in for a while. Come on, Anna. _I'm never fine_? That's not the kind of thing people say without meaning it, especially not you."

"Well, it was a shitty night."

"A shitty night? Anna, a shitty night is when the spirit we're hunting tosses you into a gravestone, the car your driving gets a flat, or the power goes out when you're in the middle of turning in a paper. Your best friend getting drunk and telling you she hates you? That's a little more than shitty. And it's pretty obvious that whatever went down last night, or whatever's been eating at you that led you to act like you did last night... it's hitting you differently than a shitty night."

"How's that?"

"You threw half the contents of your room on the floor. You somehow punched your fist bloody and didn't stop until you'd broken every finger but your thumb. That's an anger response, because, much like Dean, you turn a lot of negative feelings into anger."

"Can you not psychoanalyze me? I'm fine."

"That's a direct contradiction to what you said last night."

"I already told you that I wish I hadn't said that. I was being over dramatic."

"Yeah, you did say that. You said both of those things. But you know what you haven't said, even once? That it wasn't true."

Anna swallowed, realizing she'd been caught somehow. "Well, it wasn't true. I am fine sometimes. Like right now. Right now, I'm feeling great."

"You're lying," Sam argued. It was simple, but it was true, and Anna responded in kind. She hid her face in her coffee cup to take another sip, because she was uncomfortable being called out like that. "You said we never listen. Well, I'm listening."

"Well, then, clearly I was wrong."

"Why are you so determined not to be honest with me?" There was audible frustration in Sam's voice, but he looked patient when Anna forced herself to make eye contact with him.

"Because it's hard," she said forcefully. "I don't know how to talk about it."

"All the really important things are hard to talk about," Sam told her in his oh-so-wise way. "That doesn't mean you can just avoid them."

Right he was, but Anna didn't want to admit that. Admitting to his point would mean talking about things she would rather avoid forever. "I can avoid them if I want," she insisted weakly.

"So I should ask again tomorrow?"

Anna glared at her brother, but it lacked any real heat. She just wasn't angry the way she had been the previous night. "Okay, well, what if I told you I was angry for the same reason I was every time I came home late last year?"

"I'd say you're telling me a half-truth."

Dammit, he was good. It made her mad, and Anna suppressed it like she usually did but hadn't been able to last night. "Well, it's complicated."

"I don't have anywhere to be."

"Well, maybe you should find some place," Anna snapped and then went quiet, fixing her eyes on a stray textbook on the floor across the room from her.

"I told you this peace and love shit wouldn't do any good, Sam."

Upon hearing her oldest brother's voice, Anna further clammed up and grit her teeth together. Fighting with Dean always resulted in some serious ass-kicking. But, to her surprise, Dean walked in looking calm as could be and stood behind Sam's chair without crossing his arms or putting his hands on his hips or making any of his other intimidating _dad stance_ s.

"You know, kid, if this is seriously about the same thing it was all last year, then we've had this conversation before. But if you need a refresher course, here goes. The whole orphan thing does not mean you get to do whatever the hell you want, damn the consequences. It means we're all you've got. So, whether you like it or not, we are in charge, not _acting_ like we are, but _actually_ in charge."

Anna could feel her temper flaring again. Half of it was embarrassment, she knew. It was just so uncomfortable being talked down to. But parents did that. And Dean was right in that they were the closest thing she had. And that argument wouldn't be so hard to swallow if she weren't in the position she was in their family. In fact, back when she was always on the road with them, she never felt like this. The indignancy over being parented by her brothers hadn't existed. It had only started after they moved into the bunker and Anna found herself being left behind, out of harm's way, almost every day. She felt like she'd been made responsible for a lot, left out of a lot... if she wasn't really a member of this family and if she was supposed to be able to stand being alone, then she didn't want anybody else drawing boundaries for her. But there was no solution to that. They weren't about to let her start hunting full time. She'd _tried_ to drop out, and that had gone about as badly as possible. She certainly wasn't about to start answering Sam's hundred thousand questions. If Dean felt like he'd resolved something, Anna would just have to tell herself that he had, tell Sam that he had.

She lifted her head, looked between each of them, and let her eyes rest on Dean's face. Her expression was dull, her eyes closed off from any sign of vulnerability. "Okay," she said. _I'll ride the bus, Dean_. "If you can go now, I've got a lot of cleanup to do."

She did have a lot of cleanup to do. There was chaos everywhere. Not just in her room, but in her mind. She had to sort through it all, put the scattered pieces of straw back together and make one precarious half girl.

Neither of her brothers gave the response she'd been expecting, though. Maybe she hadn't expected it. Maybe she'd just _hoped_ they would leave without question. They both looked off put, though, and a little upset, but not angry.

"Fine," Sam said and moved her chair to its usual place by her desk. "But we're askin' again tomorrow," he said with a knowing look.

Anna bit her lip and looked up at him without moving her head. Then she let her gaze fall on Dean. He had a similarly knowing smile on his face. He wasn't giving up either. So Anna watched them go and then sighed heavily once she was alone. She hoped like hell that they would either let this go, or do a damn good job making her feel better.

_la fin_


	2. The Straw Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath to Chaos as Therapy, because she's obviously not okay. There's a lot more Sam and Dean in this chapter.

"Did you even hear what I just said?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Are you kidding me? _So_? That is not the dynamic here. Give it to me." She didn't move, and Dean fixed her with a deadly and serious look. "Now."

Anna stared dully at her older brother and tried to wait him out. Like usual, it didn't work. He was steadfast, determined, and she was just grumpy and didn't feel like doing anything. She was no match. She flicked her phone into silent mode, turned it off, and passed it begrudgingly to Dean, being sure to slap it into his palm a little harder than necessary.

"And the attitude can stop," he added sternly and pocketed her phone. "You know you deserve this."

"What, losing my social life altogether? Had that one coming, yeah."

"Don't be so dramatic."

"Don't be so annoying."

"Don't be such a little-"

"Dean."

Anna took the opportunity Sam had, however inadvertently, provided her with and got up from the table in the library to go to her room and stew in her anger. She had no idea how she would occupy herself without her phone while trapped in the bunker. She couldn't even play music or watch anything without her phone. Netflix and her right to leave the bunker for anything non-school related had both been confiscated after the party on Friday, four days ago now.

"Don't even think about walking away right now. We are not done talking."

Except they hadn't been having a _conversation_. She turned on her heel and put her hands on her hips, a stance she'd learned subconsciously from Dean and was now using on Dean. " _You're_ not done. And you don't need an audience to run your mouth."

"Woah," Dean exclaimed, rearing back as if she'd crossed some kind of invisible but sacred line.

His face hardened with rage, and Anna sighed as he snapped his fingers and pointed at the chair she'd just vacated, facial muscles locked tensely in place. He didn't say anything until she'd followed his unspoken instructions and sat back down. At the next table down, Sam had a dreadful look on his face and was switching between staring purposefully at his laptop and stealing glances at the exchange between his siblings.

In an intimidating pose he'd perfected since Anna's thirteenth birthday, Dean placed one hand on the table and leaned down ever so slightly, putting himself not only at a level twice her height, but also positioning himself so that he was literally directly above her. She hated it, and he knew it.

"You _do not_ talk like that to me."

Just like that, the rebellious and uncaring center of her brain reared in protest. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot you were _Dad_." And just like that, she'd said something she couldn't take back.

A mantra in her head began immediately. _Why did I say that? Why did I say that? Why did I say that? Why the_ hell _did I say that?_ Heart pounding in her chest over a few taboo words that probably hurt her more than they hurt Dean but that also communicated more than she'd intended to tell Dean... Anna lifted her gaze carefully but steadily. To her surprise, he seemed undeterred by her comment. But he also seemed to realize that she'd hit herself with it much harder than expected. It sucked, because she could hardly remember their father. Thinking of him as an authoritarian hardass wasn't the image she wanted of him and it certainly wasn't what she wanted anyone to think she thought of him.

"Why don't you go to your room and come back out when you remember how to be civil?" he suggested with an air of admirable calm. He stepped back, allowing his sister room to stand and go. But Anna just felt like shit after everything, and that was unfair because her comment had come from a place of feeling disrespected and unheard, yet she'd been made to feel guilty without anybody but her saying a word.. Under her breath, as she left, she muttered, "Fuck my life," and kicked a chair with enough force that it screeched along the floor before falling sideways.

How did everything these days somehow land her here?

She could sense the discomfort and disappointment from each of her brothers as she left the room. They'd never had to deal with another teenager except during their own adolescence and one another's. But they'd understood then. She'd never wished for another sibling before. But, in that moment, Anna desperately wished for a teenage sister. A little older- No- A little younger. Somebody she could talk to about everything she felt and see admiration and understanding in their eyes instead of disappointment or anger or a desperation _to_ understand, but a lack of actual understanding. Sam and Dean tried. She loved them for trying. But they didn't get it. They couldn't, because she didn't want to explain how she felt. But she couldn't confidently say that talking about all the crap that swirled around in her head would have been easier with a fourteen year old sister than with a 31 or 35 year old brother. She especially couldn't say so when those brothers were Sam and Dean Winchester, two of the most compassionate and understanding human beings on the planet Earth, both of whom happened to be pretty okay at talking to and understanding teenagers.

She was so lucky. She was so broken.

As she stepped through her bedroom doorway feeling close to tears and filled to the brim with guilt, Anna thought to the lyrics from _Screen_ by Twenty One Pilots. So simple, so fitting.

_We're broken. We're broken. We're broken. We're broken people._

She wanted to hear the song blaring full volume through her earbuds, OSIRIS sneakers tapping against the wall as she shoved her life away and tried to live inside of a song lyric. But Dean had her phone, her music, her escape.

She slammed the door so hard that she could be sure they heard it from the library.

Nobody yelled at her, and Anna felt guilty.

()()()

In the bathroom, she stood in front of the mirror and tried to understand what was wrong that could make her continue to be and do the very things she hated in or about herself. She felt guilty for acting out against them, and so she did it some more as a way of coping but that fed the guilt and there was no way out. She'd never felt or acted this way so consistently, not even after her mother died and she moved swiftly from sadness to rage. This was a whole other level of anger, seemingly without cause. Sure, she had problems. But this place of constant revolt and anger could not be justified or explained by those problems.

She concluded that she must be possessed. She poured holy water on her arm, and nothing happened. Well, her arm got wet. But that was it. Human.

She blessed the water in her water bottle for school and thought, in the back of her mind, that she should do this every day in case any demons ever decided to mess with her at school. She tried with the freshly blessed water, just in case the holy water she'd used the first time hadn't been "holy enough" or something. It didn't work.

She grew a little desperate. She nicked herself with a silver knife and got angry when it didn't elicit any burning. She pulled the little canister of salt out of her backpack and tossed a pinch of it into her mouth. Her face scrunched in distaste, but it didn't hurt. She tried touching iron and again saw and felt no supernatural reaction.

Having run out of options, Anna stood in a state of confused frustration. If she wasn't possessed then all of this was... her. Just her.

()()()

At first, the party had seemed like something big, a climax. But then nothing resolved itself. She was the problem, not her one choice. Of course, the choice had been why she was being punished in about thirty ways. Turned out that Sam and Dean could be _exactly_ like parents when they wanted to be, and they weren't fond of driving twenty minutes on a Friday night to rescue their little sister from a drunken party where her best friend was vomiting and she'd started a brawl. They found out about that one through Kate's mom on Monday, having originally thought there'd been only a small fight. Apparently, Kate had rambled about that while she was drunk too. She'd been called out for lying by omission, which she still thought was the stupidest thing _ever_ even though she'd been lectured on it since she was five, and for, you know, starting a huge fight at a party full of drunk people.

She hadn't bothered to correct them and explain just how much of an accident it had been. While she knew they didn't think she was a bad kid or anything, she also knew that they both had it in their heads that she was going through something that was causing her to make a string of very bad choices. A rocky patch? A rebellious phase? She didn't know. She just knew that they were going easy on her even as they acted stricter than ever before. It was confusing and it made her angry.

So, on Wednesday, she convinced Kate to ditch Math class with her, knowing that, because they knew her so well and because they were just that good, the boys would find out somehow.

"You know, we're both still grounded after Friday. Shouldn't we be, like, laying low? Sucking up, maybe?" Kate so clearly didn't want to be ditching right now that Anna felt awfully guilty about having talked her into it.

"You didn't have to come with me," she said. "You can go back. Run in late." Every teacher at this school loved Kate, so she would have no problem being excused for one time being a few minutes late.

"No," Kate said after a minute. It was too quiet, though, and Anna looked over at her in question. "What?"

She was frustrated already and she shouldn't be, so Anna shook her head at herself and took a deep breath. Then she looked over at Kate. She recognized a spark of concern in her friend's brown eyes, and she disliked it. "What?" she threw the same question back at Kate.

"I just-" Kate stopped walking down the sidewalk and grabbed Anna by the arm. "Can we talk about something?"

"Sure," Anna said, but she was prepared to take that back if she turned out to be the topic of conversation instead of Kate.

"Okay, good, because I'm... I'm worried about you."

Anna rolled her eyes and pulled away to keep moving down the sidewalk. Her _The Office_ keychain on her backpack jingled against the _I love coffee_ one and she was irritated by the sound that she usually found comforting.

"Anna, seriously. I'm your best friend. Can you just tell me what's wrong?" It was so close to pleading that it made Anna feel guilty for _not_ talking.

"Kate, I'm fine," she tried to insist.

Kate got angry then, face flushing a light shade of pink as she got right in Anna's face and pointed a deadly finger at her. "Don't patronize me. I don't want you to reassure me. If you don't want to tell me what's wrong, then fine. But don't pretend I don't know you and I can't see that you're not fine. Give me a little bit of freaking credit after three years, will you?" She backed off then, face still flushed. After a second, she started looking a little bit flustered or like she felt surprised at herself.

Anna looked at the ground, unsure what to say. "Fine," she said after a little while. A twenty-something man on a bike sped past them, the whir a welcome break from the intensity of their conversation. "I'm not fine. But I don't want to talk about it."

"If we skip AP French, will you want to talk about it?"

"If we skip AP French, we'll both end up behind on work for the next _week_."

"Anna, you haven't been doing your work lately anyway. It's not like you. You know, if you keep acting like this, you're gonna have teachers trying to find out what's wrong."

Anna might have shuddered at the thought if she'd had the energy to care. Fact was, she didn't know just what it was that made her feel angry or upset all the time lately. She knew the root of it, but the root of it had been in the back of her mind forever. Why it would suddenly be unavoidable and start affecting her every day, she didn't know.

"If we skip AP French," Kate said again. "Will you want to talk about it?"

Anna was fully aware of what a big offer this was. Kate was intrinsically good in a way that Anna could never kid herself by pretending to be. She didn't care about rules the way her friend did. Likely, that stemmed from the fact that her family had been breaking laws on a daily basis since before she was born. Hell, the breakfast sandwich she'd gotten for breakfast yesterday had been purchased with a fake credit card. But she still hated that about herself. She hated that she was so bad at being good. She hated that she was so good at being bad even as she hated that she didn't know how to be bad. She was a mess. How could she explain that to somebody? Even Kate? It was tempting nonetheless.

"I don't know," she answered and started to stroll slowly toward the alley they'd discovered as Freshmen. It was one of the few alleys in Lebanon that they didn't think of as dark and intimidating. There was one dumpster there, but there was also a little booth bench that appeared to have been pulled from a diner and left there a long time ago. They always sat there when they ditched, which wasn't often.

Settling side by side on the couch, both girls let out a sigh of exhausted and heavy-hearted stress.

"Anna."

A hesitant pause. "Yeah?"

"Are you as scared as I am?"

Another pause. "Yeah."

()()()

Yet another fight ensued over her disrespectful attitude that night over dinner. As promised, they'd been asking nightly whether she felt ready to talk. Every night, she'd quietly shaken her head and they'd all pretended the question had never been asked, having normal dinners. Except that Anna hadn't spoken much lately. It started out simple, like always.

"You're quiet."

_No shit_ , Anna thought sarcastically. She didn't say anything, because saying what she thought would probably be frowned upon. She shrugged instead and took a sip of her iced coffee.

"You know, you shouldn't drink that crap this late. You won't be able to sleep tonight."

Anna bristled at Sam's words despite their simplicity. She was sixteen years old. She knew that drinking caffeine at 6:30 could hurt her chances of falling asleep, but only if she intended to go to bed at eight or nine. She had a hell of a caffeine tolerance, for one thing. And for another thing, she didn't generally go to bed until after midnight unless she was fatigued from a hunt or a long week. She _was_ fatigued from a long week, but she was purposely resisting sleep lately. Maybe she just didn't like being called out on that, and thus she hated Sam pointing out her caffeine intake.

Again, she chose not to say anything because all the replies running through her mind were uncharitable and, honestly, rather rude. She noticed the indiscrete look her brothers exchanged. They both looked vaguely frustrated, which made sense. They had a grouchy teenager at their dinner table.

"So, uh, how was school?" Sam asked, but only after having cleared his throat awkwardly in the silence.

Anna shrugged one shoulder and bobbed one eyebrow as she thought of how they would feel if they knew she'd ditched, then realized her mistake. Her usual answer was a disinterested _fine_. She could feel the change in their gazes. "What?" she snapped impatiently.

"What are you pissed about?" Dean demanded, obviously lacking the patience that he'd had so frequently as of late. "Far as I can see, we've been pretty nice to you."

Thoughtlessly, Anna rolled her eyes, determined not to engage. There were too many unnecessary and disrespectful comments begging to be spat from her mouth.

"Nothing to say now?"

"Dean," Sam said simply, quietly. It was enough. Dean backed off, but he didn't look happy. He went back to his food, stabbing a piece of chicken harder than necessary.

Anna didn't like that she'd been 'rescued' again, and she didn't like the vibe of the table all of a sudden. She sighed and pushed her chair away, just wanting to be alone.

"You didn't even eat anything," Sam called after her, but she ignored him.

"Alright, that's it," Dean muttered. He stood up, chair wailing against the floor. "Get your ass back here," he ordered, far louder than Anna thought was necessary.

"Spare me the lecture, Dean," Anna huffed and continued toward the doorway, rolling her eyes as if she couldn't possibly care less.

"Anna Grace!" Okay, and that was a little intimidating. Loud, angry, commanding. She turned slowly, an unhappy look still fixed firmly on her face. But she was listening. "Stop throwing temper tantrums like a toddler and eat your dinner."

Anna wasn't impressed by that. He didn't even have a threat of punishment to tack on the end, and she suddenly wanted to take advantage of that so badly. So, unlike she'd been doing for the past ten minutes, she let what she was thinking come out her mouth. "Sorry, you have nothing left to take away from me, so I guess I finally get to do what I want, huh?" She gave a miserable little smirk that she didn't even feel, and turned to go again.

She heard a brief shuffle of feet, but Sam just said, "Dean," and it went quiet. She walked down the hallway with a hole tearing through her gut.

Why couldn't she just be good for once?

()()()

"Everybody fights with their parents."

"Says the perfect one." Kate gave her a sharp look and Anna sighed shortly. "Sorry," she said sincerely. "I don't like fighting with them, but I'm somehow the one who always starts it. And the weirdest thing is, they haven't gone on or even _talked about_ going on a hunt all week."

Kate mumbled something, obviously not wishing for Anna to hear whatever it was.

"What?"

Kate sighed heavily. "I said, they're probably worried about you."

Anna rolled her eyes and closed her locker with more force than necessary. "Yeah, worried that I'll go to another party. They don't trust me, Kate. There's a difference."

"There is a difference, but I don't agree."

"Well, you don't have to," Anna said bitterly. "They're _my_ family. _I_ know them. And I've been a total dick lately. There's no reason they should trust me or even _like_ me right now."

"Anna..."

"Sorry, sorry. I'm being a huge buzzkill. I know." She sighed and went to Kate's locker with her. As Kate withdrew her books, Anna realized just how little mental energy she had. "I think I'm gonna skip again," she said."

Kate tilted her head. There was a combination of concern and exasperation on her face. "Two days in a row is asking to get caught. Not to mention, you're gonna fall so far behind."

Those were two very good reasons not to ditch math again. But Anna shrugged them off. "I'll figure it out."

"Anna, why don't you just come to class and sleep through it. Please."

Normally, a please would do it. Today, Anna sighed, felt a little guilt swell in her stomach for making her friend worry. "Maybe tomorrow," she said. "I just want to breathe for a minute."

"Breathe for a minute in Room 112."

"Kate, can you please be the one person who doesn't question everything I do?" Anna asked with sudden and uncalled for frustration.

Kate seemed to rear back a bit. She ran a hand through her long brown hair self-consciously. "Okay. Fine," she said, and it was a little bit short-tempered, but it was what Anna had asked for.

She watched Kate go with some regret. She should have listened. But hurting people close to her in every microscopic way was her forte these days.

She wandered out of the school building and walked the sidewalk straight through the rest of town before turning around and walking back to the school. It took an hour, which meant she was late for French class, so she decided not to go to that either. Instead, she sat out in the back of the schoolyard, in the shade of a few trees, just out of sight were anybody to walk out the back doors of the school.

She sat and pulled her phone out of her pocket, because as determined as her family was that she deserved to lose her phone for a while on top of every other punishment, they also wanted her safe. God only knew why. Regardless, that meant taking her phone with her whenever she went to school. Well... "to school."

She was surprised, upon looking at her notifications, to see a text from Claire.

_Jody's worried abt u. U ok?_

Instead of the usual flash of anger that had been appearing every time she heard or saw that question in the last five days, Anna felt a thump of fear and guilt in her gut. They'd spoken to Jody. Probably told her all about what a mess their sister had been. She realized with a start why she'd been acting as she had since Friday.

She'd been so angry when they went easy on her. She'd been so angry when they didn't confirm that she was the straw girl. So, she let the straw girl come out to play. The straw girl was this angry, broken, fearful half of her. It was the piece of her that wasn't good enough and knew she never would be. It was the fraction of her that _wanted_ to be rejected, just so she wouldn't have to fear that all her emotions and fears were invalid. It was the most insane part of her. Yet, Anna had been listening to it all week.

She'd been testing them, trying to see how much it would take for them to reject her. Maybe Jody would be taking in one more wayward girl. The thought punched her in the stomach.

_Fine,_ she texted back.

To her surprise, Claire's response was immediate. _Liar._

She didn't know what to say. Claire was right. _So?_ she finally sent back.

_U wanna talk?_

_No_

_Ok_

She was sick of space, yet she was glad to have it. She understood what Claire was doing. Anna had listened and talked to her when she was going through something after moving in with Jody. But it had been a few months since that time, and Anna didn't talk to Claire that much.

Slowly, the anger seeped in. Her brothers were getting other people involved in her business, probably tainting Jody's view of her. Maybe Claire's too. She didn't want to be a pity party, nor did she want to be orphaned in every sense of the word instead of just the literal one.

()()()

Dean glanced up from the table as Sam walked in, and frowned when he didn't see Anna trailing behind him. "Where is she?"

"She didn't answer, and I didn't push."

"Sam-"

"Just don't, Dean. Not tonight. Might be better if we have a chance to talk about this without her sitting there looking like somebody killed her puppy anyway."

Dean bobbed his eyebrows in acknowledgement and sighed. "She'd look like that for five minutes and then she'd turn into the puppy killer when you try to talk to her."

"No kidding. She's sixteen. That's a hard age."

"Every age is a hard age in this life, man. She's never been like this before. She's like a powder keg."

The words echoed back nearly ten years in time. Sam's irritability had appeared very differently in his twenty two year old self than it was now in Anna's sixteen year old self. But, in both scenarios, Dean's description was accurate. Anna _was_ blowing up over things constantly these days, just in smaller, verbal ways. Sam had thrown himself into the hunt, been angry about every inconvenience, and been dead set on a goal that simply couldn't be fulfilled without plenty of time.

"Well, it might help if you didn't lose patience with her immediately," Sam defended, holding his brother's gaze when Dean started to look defensive. "I'm just sayin'."

"Whatever. The attitude drives me up the wall."

"I know," Sam said. "But somebody has to be the patient one, and I don't see it being Anna right now."

"No, you're right. I know." It was quiet for a minute, neither of them eating, but both looking at their plates, lost in thought. "Man, did we ever throw that kind of attitude around with Dad?"

Sam shrugged and then snickered as a couple distinct memories came to mind. "Was pretty rare," he admitted. Then, remembering some stern talking tos and... well, worse punishments, he sobered. "He had a way of deterring us from that."

"Yeah, well, as much respect as I have for the guy, I don't think Anna would benefit from John Winchester style parenting right now."

Silently, Sam wholeheartedly agreed. Anna was at least as stubborn as himself and Dean. Proof of that came in the way she'd steadfastly kept whatever was eating at her to herself over the past week of disaster. It also didn't escape him that Dean had used the word _parenting_. They never said it around Anna, because she never reacted well to it. Sometimes, hearing the word would cause her to outwardly yell or start acting passive aggressive. But often, she would withdraw, like the thought of being anybody's child scared her and made her feel the need to retreat. Maybe this, now, was a new form of that reaction. "You think we pissed her off?"

Dean squinted at the center of the table, thinking deeply about the question. "No. I think she's angry, but not at us. I mean, Jody even said it; kids get mad, they take it out on people they're comfortable with."

"Which is why we never dared talk back to Dad," Sam grumbled before taking a bite of pizza.

Dean shot his brother a look that Sam managed to avoid, but he considered that and realized Sam wasn't wrong. John had tried his best, but his best hadn't always been good enough. He'd instilled values in them that he considered important but didn't always seem capable of upholding. He'd taught them skills and responsibilities that he knew they would need, but that they shouldn't necessarily have been forced to shoulder as young as they did. Both of them had been kids only in the physical sense, and they'd relied far more heavily on each other than on their father in just about every area of their lives.

Dean liked to think they'd been better than that with Anna. They used to take her to playgrounds in various towns, play games with her at Bobby's salvage yard-- memories that sang a ringing note of bittersweet now--, and they'd kept her as far from hunting as possible for as long as possible. They were _still_ trying to keep her out of it, even as she fought them tooth and claw on it almost daily, those fights including an effort to drop out of high school.

He thought back to those few days that he'd come to think of as the _Dropout War._ Occasionally, since then, Sam had brought up college, and they'd both watched her, just waiting to see what she thought. Every time, she kept her expression neutral, as if aware that they were trying to gauge her response, and hummed along to whatever he'd said, never giving any distinct answers. But Dean had the feeling that another war was coming any day now, because Anna had made it clear that she had no desire to attend college, but Sam was dead set on pushing it. The fight would start this summer, and there was no telling just how much of a bloodbath it would be.

Internally, he sighed. He wanted her in college almost as much as Sam did, but for some very different reasons. Both of them wanted her to do _anything_ that wasn't hunting, because both of them wanted her safe. Dean would have liked to see her stay with them, in the bunker, and work in Lebanon or work with them on hunting but stay out of the fight. But those options were unviable. He knew that if Anna were to stay in Lebanon, especially were she to stay in the bunker, she would be forever pushing to join the hunt. So, college was it, the only way to get her to stay out of harm's way. That was the sole reason he felt that they should be pushing her into college.

Sam was determined for those reasons and more. Sometimes, he would read a paper the kid had written for school and he'd praise her skills in rhetorical or historical analysis, and Anna would blush and tell him to shut up. He would talk about her report cards like a proud parent, and it made Dean damn proud too. But Anna always shied away from compliments about academics or intelligence. On the other side of the spectrum, she soaked up every word or praise about shooting, running, or hand-to-hand, things they were only teaching her for the purposes of self defense.

She was constantly pushing for more, and they were constantly reminding her that it could wait, that she was still in high school. Something in that train of thought made it all click.

"You think she still feels a lot of the crap from November?"

Sam frowned, looking confused for a second. Then an expression of realization took over. "You mean from when she wanted to drop out."

"Yeah, all that crap about feeling overlooked or unimportant or whatever it all was." As if he didn't remember every detail they'd discussed.

Sam rubbed his greasy fingers on a napkin and then used them to rub his eyes tiredly. "I don't know. She's stubborn, but we talked about all of that." They both stared at the table, exhausted and distraught. "She used to talk to us."

"I know. And I don't want her to grow up not knowin' how to talk about any of this, man. I don't want her to be like- like-"

"Like us?" Sam asked with a little smirk of understanding. Dean looked sheepish. "I think she already is, Dean. But I agree. I mean, we shouldn't just let her drown in everything. I just feel bad pushing. She's got the right to privacy."

"Yeah, well, there's gotta be a line somewhere. And I'm done watching her act like she has the last week."

"Go a little easy, Dean. She's a teenager."

"That's a reason to go easy on her?"

"Well, yeah. We're not that old. Think about what it was like being a teenager back then. What kind of stuff would have made us upset enough to act like that but not feel like we could talk about it?"

Dean shrugged. "Only thing that ever pulled us that far under was hunting, and she hasn't been dragged into anything lately. I mean, there was that spirit a couple weeks ago."

"No, she's not upset about a case. She'd talk about that." He was right on that front. Anna was generally at least somewhat comfortable expressing fear or guilt or sadness when it was about a hunt. She knew they'd get it and not make fun of her for any of those feelings. "You know, I don't think that's even the weirdest part. I mean, teenagers not talking to their... families," he said after careful consideration. "Is nothing new. But she's not even talking to Kate about it."

"Yeah, and Jody said she blew Claire off."

"I think you're right," Sam said after a minute. "I think she still has it in her head that she has to be a hunter to be important."

"God, hunting. You know, I would kill for a chance to kill something right now."

"Well, we can't exactly go on a hunt while she's in whatever funk this is."

"I know that," Dean said tiredly and took a swig of his beer. "Just startin to get a little cabin fever's all."

When Sam's phone started ringing, both of them paused with food halfway to their mouths. Sam wiped his fingers off and then pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the caller ID with interest. He frowned with a little pull-back that communicated his surprise and confusion at the call. "It's Kate."

Dean raised one eyebrow. "Kate, like, Kate Foster?"

Sam held up a finger and answered, "Hi, kiddo. What's the matter? You okay?" Dean smiled a little, considering how much his brother had grown that Sam could refer to people other than their baby sister as _kiddo_. But it didn't seem weird anymore, not even to him. He was pulled from that thought quickly as Sam said, "Yeah, sure. Let me put you on speaker."

"Hey, kid. I think you have the wrong number," Dean joked, letting her know he was there.

Kate's huff of a laugh could be heard, and then she was quiet for a second. " _No, actually, I was hoping I could talk to you guys without Anna listening. Much as that breaks the friend code_."

"Screw the friend code. If you can tell us what's been goin' on with her, she never has to know you called."

" _No, honestly, I'm done with secrets. I don't even care if she knows. Just... I actually was hoping you could tell me what's wrong. I thought something might have happened with a hunt or something. She hasn't been the same since last week._ "

"Yeah, we've noticed, but she hasn't been the most talkative lately," Sam answered, ending with a chuckle. "Did something happen?" he asked.

" _I mean, she's ditching more- er. Ditching. Period. Totally hasn't done that before._ "

Both boys smiled a little at Kate's failure to save that information she clearly hadn't meant to share in the first place. But then they frowned in unison as well as they both realized Anna had ditched without being caught in the past and had ditched frequently in the past few days. That was the insinuation, anyway.

"Alright," Dean said after a seconds of quiet. "Did you go with her?"

Kate sighed audibly. " _The first couple times. I thought she'd talk to me but she didn't. And honestly, missing two days of AP French in a row is lowkey suicidal, so I didn't go today. I might as well have gone, though, cause the whole time I was just sitting there worrying about her._ "

Sam felt a small smile grace his face as he held the phone between himself and his brother, elbow resting on the table. Anna was lucky to have a friend who cared so much about her. Not only did Kate care genuinely enough to worry about her when she was going through something. But Kate also cared completely enough to talk to Anna's family when she felt her slipping out of reach.

"Where does she usually go?" Dean asked.

Kate stuttered a little as she said, " _Sh-She- uh... doesn't ditch often, but when she does it's the same alley by the_ Kickback _. Why?_ "

"Why there?" Dean asked, ignoring the question posed to him as well as the inquisitive look he was getting from Sam.

" _There's this old booth seat from a diner that got tossed back there and we set it up a long time ago. Like, back in Freshman year, I think. We used to just sit there and talk about shit. Not that we ditched a lot,_ " she corrected herself again. " _Why?_ "

Dean sighed. "I thought maybe she'd be goin' back for comfort or something, but it's not adding up."

"What are you talking about?"

Dean looked to his brother. "If she was ditching just to cause trouble or be defiant, she'd want us to know," he said.

Sam tilted his head back in understanding. "Right, subconsciously, she'd want to be caught, so she'd slip up."

"But if she usually goes there to talk and hang out, and she refused to talk, it's not a comfort thing either."

" _Well, yeah,_ " Kate said as if stating that one plus one equals two." _She's exhausted lately. Have you seen her? She just didn't have the energy for class._ "

The boys sat on that for a minute before exchanging a look. Sam shifted, straightening in his chair and clearing his throat. "Kate, why did you two go to that party last week?" he asked gently, hoping his careful tone was enough to communicate that he had no interest in starting any more trouble over the ordeal.

" _Uh... well, it's kind of a long story, but the kid that threw it was my dad's girlfriend's son and I kinda had no choice._ "

"But Anna did," Sam deduced.

" _Wel- Well, I mean, I guess, but she wasn't gonna let me go alone, so... I'm not trying to get her in trou-"_

"No, no, no. That's not why I ask. I'm just... so paint me a picture. You get to this party, and...?"

It was quiet for a second, but then Kate started to explain, telling them the story they'd only gotten in shards up to this point. " _Full disclosure,_ " she prefaced. " _We walked in thinking one, maybe two drinks, have some fun for a couple hours, go home._ _But the scene was like straight out of a 90s movie. I mean, people were already puking and smoking and doing god knows what else when we got there. So, we went and met the kid, but he was no prize. And then Anna totally backed down these two morons like a badass and we just had fun for a while._ _Then my idiot side kicked in and I remember-_ " she sounded ashamed as she continued. " _I remember she tried to stop me from drinking any more and we started fighting and things kinda get hazy after that. I have a foggy memory of the brawl that broke out later, though, and that was insane._ "

"What did you fight about?"

" _Wha- Why does that matter?_ "

"Look, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But we're trying to put together all this stuff, and if something was said that might be contributing to this, or if she said something that could give us some insight, then we'd really like to know about it."

Dean had to give his brother kudos for the pitch he'd made, because not only was it persuasive but it lacked judgement or accusation and that just seemed like the only way of asking that could make Kate respond.

Sure enough, it took only seconds before another sigh could be heard and then Kate started talking again. " _I don't remember the exact words since I was drunk and it was, like, a week ago,_ " she warned.

"That's alright. Just, whatever you remember," Sam assured gently.

" _She- she brought up the bar thing from last year for some reason and I told her she wasn't the only one with problems. I said something stupid about her having fun and she said she was alone all the time, which, I mean, that's depressing. Anyway, she kept trying to tell me what to do and I called her bossy and a hypocrite and she called me an idiot, which is fair. So I called her a dictator and she said something about being a shitty friend and I said something about feeling guilty all the time and then I told her to leave me alone and that's pretty much the last thing I remember. Aside from, apparently, telling her I hated her, which, you know, is probably why she won't talk to me anymore._ "

"Kate, this is not on you, alright? None of it is. Friends fight, and with the alcohol involved too, things were bound to spiral out of control. But everything you just said is helpful, okay? So don't feel guilty about any of this. Just keep being a good friend, because as much as Friday was a mess, you're really important to her and you're good for her."

"Yeah, we don't say it enough, but you're a good kid, kid."

Kate chuckled wetly through the phone at Dean's statement. " _Thanks,_ " she said. " _Not to give away every secret she's ever told me or make you guys feel bad, but I do happen to know that she gets lonely a lot, so hone in on that, I guess._ "

"Thanks, kiddo," Dean said.

"Yeah, thanks, Kate."

" _Sure_."

As the phone's tone signalled an end to the call, both boys looked up to meet each other's eyes.

"So, we should talk to her, huh?"

()()()

She hadn't even bothered leaving her room when Sam knocked and said dinner was ready. She waited, instead, and an hour later, there was a second knock. This one was gentle, three taps of knuckles against the door. She stared at the sheets of her bed and softly called, "What?" She didn't mean for it to sound like an invitation, just like she wasn't going to bite anybody's head off.

But both of them walked in.

"Please tell me you're not about to stage an intervention," she groaned and shoved herself upwards in bed to stand up if necessary.

"Sorry, kiddo. It's lookin' like we're out of choices."

He'd called her _kiddo_ , and somehow that surprised Anna even though he said it all the time. Maybe, in her mind, she'd run too far from the version of herself that was _kiddo, rugrat, munchkin,_ and _ladybug._ Maybe she had and they just hadn't noticed yet.

"So, uh, we talked to Kate."

"What?" That got her attention. "Why?"

"Take a wild guess," Dean deadpanned.

"You're not acting like yourself, Anna."

"So, you sicced my best friend on me? Is that why she's interrogating me all of a sudden? You know, I could do without the-"

"Okay, cool off there, Scully. We're not spying on you. Kate called Sam, okay?"

The notion brought her up short for a second. "What?"

"Kate," Sam said. "She called me, because she's worried about you. She said you ditched class today."

"Oh, so she's snitching on me now? That's nice." _What comes around goes around_ , ran the familiar phrase through her head. Anna had called her brothers when Kate got drunk enough to vomit and lose consciousness, and Kate called Anna's family when Anna ditched class and snapped at her.

"Stop it, alright? Take a minute and think before you start talkin' about your best friend in the world like she's some snot-nosed freshman brat."

She allowed, reluctantly, the bitter thoughts to fade. She kept her arms crossed over her chest, and let her expression melt into a dull one. "Fine. What, do you want to take my bed away now? I mean, I think you're out of ways to discipline me, but if you want to put me in time out like a five year old, that's basically what my life has been lately anyway."

"Anna," Sam said, clearly making a concerted effort to remain patient even as Dean's eyes brimmed with deadly sternness. "You're gonna have to quit turning everything into a hyperbole about how terrible your life is if we're gonna have a conversation right now."

"Yeah, in saying that, you're forgetting that I don't have any interest in this conversation."

Sam opened his mouth, but Dean cut him off by simply holding out one hand in a gesture to wait. He looked at Anna, held her gaze for a few seconds, then bit the bullet. "What's wrong?" he asked with such authority that it felt almost like an order rather than a question. Yet there was sincerity there too.

Anna stared blankly at him. "Seriously?"

"We said we'd ask every night. The night you refuse to come out of your room is the night it stops being a question. So, tell us what's going on or we'll figure it out."

Anna's eyes narrowed in confused suspicion. How were they intending to 'find out'? After all, the problem was really only inside of her own mind. They couldn't read her mind. They might hack her phone and read all her texts, but she liked to think they would be at least a little bit more respectful of her privacy. Anyway, she hadn't really opened up to anybody, so they had no means of finding anything out.

"I'm actually fine," she said matter of factly. "So, have fun trying to dig up some deep dark secret." She looked away, purposely avoiding both their gazes and instead focusing on the cover of a textbook on the end of her bed. She'd been trying to study a couple hours ago when she'd gotten distracted and simply quit trying.

It was silent for a long time as they stood there, a couple feet from her bed. Today should have been it, Anna knew. No more hiding. But hiding was easy and she could feel herself slipping into that place where every secret was perfectly justifiable. _I don't_ need _to tell them. I've been dealing with this for a while now. We don't have to talk about it. I don't need to talk about it._ Except that she did need to talk about it and that much was clear after the catastrophe that had been this entire week.

"Alright, I can't sit in this," Dean finally said, grabbing the chair to her desk and taking a seat. He turned to look at Anna, and she didn't cower, but she did feel small under his serious and determined gaze. "Are you really dead set on putting this off some more? The conversation's gonna happen eventually."

It was quiet, and both boys straightened in surprise when Anna didn't answer right away with a resounding _Go away!_

"Are- Are we talking?" Sam asked carefully.

Each fast-paced and booming beat of her heart was felt as Anna's mouth twisted off to the side and she released a heavy breath through her nose. "I guess... I guess we're not _not talking_ ," she said, because outwardly and directly agreeing to talk was just a little too terrifying for her right now, especially after everything that had happened in the last six days. Dean's eyes nearly popped out of his skull, and Sam immediately sat down on the edge of the bed and focused his full attention on Anna. She glanced uncomfortably between them. "See, it's already weird," she said and looked down at her hands in her lap. The fingers of her right hand fiddled nervously with the thin braided bracelet on her left wrist.

"No, no, no. It's just been a long week and... It's great that you're ready to talk," Sam told her sincerely, then looked to Dean expectantly. The memo was unreceived until Sam cleared his throat loudly and Dean straightened in his chair a second time.

"Right, so, we just would like to... hear... what you feel about... last week?" He pieced the sentence together word by word, dragging out syllables here and there, and in the end his statement became a question. It did not inspire confidence in Anna that this conversation would go well, but it also told her that Dean was as nervous as she was. Maybe that was good. Maybe it was bad. She didn't know. Maybe that meant it didn't matter.

"Right, well, it's not really just last week. Last week I was just being stupid."

"Anna-" Sam tried to cut in at her self-deprecation. He was cut off.

"No, seriously. I get mad all the time over things that shouldn't make me mad. Or sometimes over nothing. And I blame you guys for it. I don't even know why. Maybe I just don't want to blame myself."

"You know, that's not in your control. You feel what you feel," Sam explained whole heartedly. He believed that, and Anna liked his philosophy, so she latched onto it. She wanted to think that anger wasn't her fault. But that was the part of her always looking for an excuse talking, so she backtracked that train of thought and chose to get skeptical.

"Mhm," Dean joined thoughtfully. "The way you act on those feelings is another matter entirely," he added, being careful not to sound overly authoritarian.

It would have been easy to roll her eyes. But easy choices lead to hard situations, and Anna didn't want to have to have a talk like this again after tonight. She held his gaze.

Dean spoke again, "You know, when you get pissed over things you maybe don't think you should be pissed about... you should figure out what's at the root of it instead of letting that anger control everything you do."

Anna looked down.

Dean made a noise like he'd just come to an understanding. "You know what's at the root of it."

"Yeah, but it's... it's really stupid."

"You say that all the time," Sam marveled. Anna knew he was right. She'd used those words as a brace before discussing anything that was hurting her since she was in pigtails. "We're not gonna think it's stupid," he assured.

Anna bit her lip and purposely didn't hold either of her brothers' gazes for long enough to convey anything. She stared at a dark spot on the wooden frame of her bed and took a deep breath. They would give her time and space and that was all she needed to get together all her thoughts and lay them out to be seen and analyzed and _fixed_.

"You want to ask me something specific?" she requested. "Cause I really don't know where to start."

"How about _I'm never fine_. That ringin' a bell?" It was surprisingly gentle for Dean. But it made Anna's stomach churn. "Cause, you know, it might explain the shitshow that this week has been."

She still couldn't believe she'd said that. Why the _hell_ would she say that? _I'm never fine. You just never listen_. She'd known it would hurt. But she hadn't had time to think. It had just been the only answer, there in her brain, and then suddenly there in the open, hanging between them and making her most comfortable relationships in the world into the most terrifying things to think about. She'd been so afraid that she'd irreparably damaged her relationship with Dean. Or with Sam. Both of them. She didn't even know if she'd been talking just to Dean or to both of them when she'd said _You never listen_. Anna rarely knew what she meant when she said things so harsh in moments of such peril.

"That wasn't entirely true," she said, treading carefully so as not to hurt anybody again. She also didn't want to lie, though. It was a fine line she found herself walking, a tightrope strung between Earth and the Moon. There was no way to make it across being only human as she was. Not even human. Half a girl, made of straw. What was even the point of talking if she was afraid to say the things that hurt the most? This was discomfort and no resolution. "I mean, I'm not _not fine_ most of the time. I just... hate a lot of things about myself." Yeah, that was bad wording. Or it was exactly what she meant and Anna was just scared. She could feel herself begin to withdraw from this already difficult conversation.

But there wasn't any judgement or astonishment coming her way which was relieving, to say the least. Strange. Anna had always believed that if the straw girl saw direct sunlight, she would be a fire hazard.

"Okay, well, that's... that's not good, but you're gonna have to be more specific, kiddo."

Anna nodded. She'd seen this coming. But there was so much. Maybe she should have come prepared, with a list. There was the list of things she hated about herself, the list of things she hated about her life, and the list of things she disliked about the boys-- extremely short and all leading back to the things she hated about herself.

Anna hated to be halfway between little kid and adult. But every teenager was in that circumstance. Did that fact make the complaint invalid, or did it just mean Sam and Dean could help if she would let them? Of course, they'd been teenagers at one time, and they certainly had not had any easier lives than her at the time.

"It's not that bad," she said, placing a conscious barrier. "It's not as bad as it sounds. I'm fine sometimes." It was backtracking, copping out, running away just like she'd finally decided to quit doing. But to quit quitting is to walk that tightrope strung between planets, suspended in time and trapped by the emptiness and potential of the surrounding universe. She bit her lip, hoped she hadn't made herself sound like an idiot already, and tried to force this timid and terrified side of her into the shadows. It was time to let other sides of her see the light. It was time to let the straw girl feel the sun on her face without fear of explosion.

"You know, it's okay to not be okay," Sam said as if he thought he had to. He seemed to believe it, and Anna was glad that he did believe it. But it was a recycled line, one Anna had heard in health class and from a few enlightened kids or teachers at school who'd been forced to have conversations like this one before. It was the echo of important and true but unhelpful wisdom. _Discomfort is not dangerous. Comfort is._ Anna sometimes felt she was drowning in offers of support from all angles. As difficult as her life could be in terms of balancing hunting, family, and school, she also knew that her largest support system, by far, was her family. Despite all the support she could lean on, it was incredibly difficult to admit to being _not okay_ whether for a few minutes, an afternoon, a week, or a month.

Over the course of the previous six months, there had been days when getting out of bed was difficult. But she wasn't depressed. She just lived a hard life and staying motivated could be a strain at times. There had been an increasing number of instances where she would get stuck in negative mindsets that cyclically tortured her for her place in her family or her inability to be like the other kids at school. But all that seemed too little to bring up. So Anna let herself believe that, even if it hurt, it didn't matter because it was small. It wasn't worth making people uncomfortable. She didn't want to feel different. She didn't want a relationship to change because somebody knew every side of her. But if anybody were to understand, it would be one or both of these two men in front of her. They knew the hurts, fears, and joys of her lifetime better than anybody else. Kate knew her anxieties to an extent. Claire knew her anxieties differently.

All of it made her want to answer with a plethora of questions. _For how long?_ _Can you be not-okay for a year and have that still be okay? Or is that only applicable if you were not okay for one night and now you're over it? Is it okay if you're still not okay? Or can you only talk about being not-okay in the past tense, once you've gotten through it? Maybe it's okay to not be okay, but can you be not-okay and keep all the good things and people that you have? Or do you have to accept, in the process of becoming okay, that you're going to lose relationships that were really great before?_

"Just spit it out," Dean suggested. "You'll feel better after, kiddo. You know it."

Anna looked up at him, saw the genuine care and hurt on his face at seeing her in such turmoil. She caved, twisting one finger tightly in her bracelet as she finally answered. "You ever listen to MCR?"

The question seemed to throw both her brothers rather far off course. "What?" Dean asked after a minute, appearing utterly lost but like he was trying to find the connection.

"The band." Clearly, the band MCR didn't ring any bells, and Anna wasn't surprised. She sighed a little, feeling like she had no chance of explaining any of how she felt in quite the same way without them knowing the band. "They have this song called Famous Last Words," she said anyway. She got two blank and further confused looks. She wasn't helping them put the pieces together very quickly, and she knew that. "It's about a cancer patient because that's the album, but it's kinda not too. You know, in that way that most stuff only makes sense if you talk in paradoxes. Like, I matter but I don't, and all that shit." She was about to keep rambling about the song, but she closed her mouth when both boys shifted and opened their mouths.

"Can you repeat that?" Dean requested tilting his head down and slightly forward as he looked at her.

Anna shrugged. "It's... about a cancer patient."

"You know that's not what he's talking about," Sam said knowingly but gently.

Anna sighed. "You mean the _I matter but I don't_ part?" she asked, staring down at her fingers as she picked a thread from her mattress.

"That would be it," Dean said snidely. His expression softened quickly, though. "What does that even mean, Anna? You matter. Tell me you know that."

His expression was so genuinely sad that Anna wondered if she should have been more careful about her choice of words. She shrugged a little, biting her lip as she suddenly felt like crying. She didn't want to hurt them through any of this, even if it meant making herself feel better.

"Don't even think about clamming up now, Rugrat. We are _having_ this conversation."

That piece of her that hated being told what to do, that often roared dangerously at orders... stayed silent. "I know that I matter," Anna said, and it was hard to say which probably wasn't a good sign. "I just... feel like that's an illogical thing to think. Like, _yeah_ , you'd be sad if I died, but, like, nobody else would know the difference. And that's chill, but, like, it sucks too."

Maybe it was the teenage dialogue mixed with feelings she'd only openly discussed with them a couple times before, but Anna felt like she wasn't making sense. She looked at each of their faces and realized they didn't seem to be understanding her.

"What are you saying, Anna?" Sam finally asked.

"In the song, there's this line that goes, _I'm incomplete. A life that's so demanding, I get so weak._ And then there's this other part that says, _My eyes are shining bright cause I'm out here on the other side_."

"Is this goin' somewhere?" Dean asked, not unkindly but impatiently.

Anna sighed shortly. "I think eventually, yeah." She took a careful breath and thought through her next sentence before speaking it slowly. "It's just that... sometimes... I feel like I don't do anything. I'm literally here _all the time_ , and whatever, I'm lonely, who cares. I just want to do something that matters at least a little."

"Okay, hold on," Dean urged. "Rugrat, listen to yourself. You don't have to be a hunter to matter. What percentage of people on this planet are hunters? You think all those other people don't matter?"

"That's different," Anna whispered dismissively.

"No, it's not," Sam argued, leaning forward to catch her eyes. "Why do you have to be a hunter, Anna? There are at least a hundred better options."

"Oh, come on," she said, again being dismissive.

"No, really.You have to know it's the last thing we want for you."

Anna frowned as if she'd never actually allowed herself to think what he'd just told her. She'd known, on some level, that there would be a fight about college some day, or about her desire to become a hunter. She'd been open about it with Claire a little while ago when they all went to Sioux Falls. But neither of her brothers had ever said it to her face that they didn't want her to become a hunter. It felt powerful and expected at the same time. Anna curled her lip and looked at the sheets on her bed. "Well, you might want to start getting over that," she suggested, still sounding vulnerable more so than her earlier belligerence.

"We'll see," Sam said like it was a challenge, frustrated disappointment written all over his face.

"No, see, _that's_ the problem. If I don't hunt, then I'm just gonna feel like this forever."

"Okay, hey. The hunting thing- That's a conversation for another time," Dean butted in, shooting Sam a look of warning.When Anna didn't say anything, he adjusted his position and leaned forward, hoping she would take the hint and meet his eyes. "Listen to me," he said gently.

Anna raised her gaze, but not her head. Dean was taken aback by the naively vulnerable glossy look that lay in his sister's eyes. He hadn't seen her look so young in a long time, it seemed. Although, she'd looked rather childish and lost on Friday night even as she raged like a woman seeing the world's brazen injustice with utter clarity for the first time at age forty.

"Whatever is goin' on in your head, we can help you, but you _have_ to say it out loud. Go back to your song lyric if you have to, but talk to us." He watched as she held his gaze for a second, and he could see that she was fighting tears. It broke his heart, but he looked steadily into her eyes.

Anna swallowed and broke eye contact to pick at a loose thread in the knee of her jeans. "It's just... sometimes it's exhausting to be halfway between a hunter and a high school student, and I don't like to say that because I know your immediate response is gonna be to pull me right out of hunting, and that's not what I want." She let out a shaky breath. "It's just hard to walk a tightrope all the time and, I mean, I could say one wrong thing at school and be out-casted and I don't think I even care but there's still that pressure of being somebody different for seven hours a day. And I know I sound like a whiny little kid considering the shit you guys are up against every day, but I hate the in between. I'm half a high school student, and then I hunt sometimes on the weekends and it's freeing but it's also caging because I'm also only half hunter. And hunting is the family business which kinda... kinda makes me half Winchester-" The looks on both their faces transformed immediately upon hearing that, and Anna cut them off before either. "Come on, you know it's true. I ignored it for a long time, but I'm still your _half_ sister and you can't pretend you've never thought about it."

When she looked between the two of them, scrutinizing their facial expressions and trying to get a sense of what they were thinking or feeling, Anna was startled to see that they both look somewhat angry.

"What?" she asked, voice raising in pitch in a combination of confusion and fear.

"If anybody else said that about you, you know what we would do?"

She did know. She could picture it: the blood that would gush down their face, the way she'd have to check to see if either of them had broken any fingers or knuckles in their time spent beating this imaginary foe's face in. "Yeah," she mumbled. But that would be, in part, obligatory and, in part, a defense mechanism. They wanted their family to be whole and happy, so attacking one person attacked all of them. It didn't even make sense as she thought, which led Anna to begin questioning her own statements before Sam or Dean even started to disprove them.

"I know none of us was raised to be a glass half full kind of person, Anna, but you're looking at all of this in the wrong way. You know, you said a while ago, when you were convinced you wanted to drop out, that you didn't think you were strong or smart enough to be like us. Here's the problem with that," Sam said seriously.

He had this frustrated look in his eyes, and he was hand-narrating as he spoke, a sure sign that he was feeling passionately about his argument. It made Anna feel loved and intimidated at the same time. She'd pissed him off, but he was fighting _for her_.

"You're not _half_ a high school student, _half_ a hunter, or god _forbid_ half a Winchester. You're one hundred percent all of those things. And that makes you strong and smart and capable and, honestly, pretty impressive. So, don't talk about yourself like _half_ a person. Give yourself some credit."

It was quiet and a little awkward for a second, but Anna sat digesting everything that she'd just been fed. She remembered thinking, on the night of the party, that it wasn't fair how good Dean was at being one hundred different things when Anna couldn't even be anything. She turned that on its head now as she looked into Sam's hazel eyes and saw the intensity there. She thought, _Dean is a parent, a big brother, a leader, a hunter, a friend, a guardian, and a lot of other things. Sam is a parent, a big brother, a little brother, a friend, a listener, a hunter, a scholar, and a hundred other things. And I watched them both be all those things, and I became a daughter in some ways, a sister in others, a student, a hunter-in-training, a friend, and... well, maybe some other things too._

"Sam's right," Dean said with enough certainty that Anna wouldn't have dared argue even if she'd wanted to. And she didn't want to, for the first time in a long time. "And you know what?"

Anna looked him dead in the eyes and waited.

"I don't know how the _hell_ you don't see Dad in yourself."

It wasn't at all what she'd been expecting to hear, and her expression of utter bewilderment communicated that. Sam snorted from her other side, and Anna shot him a look of inquiry. She didn't know what they were talking about _at all_. _Sammy_ was like Dad because he was stubborn and smart and he had a hunger for answers and resolution. _Dean_ was like Dad, because he was the strong, natural leader and protector, the one always at the front, a shield between his family and the outside world. There were differences between Sam and Dean and there were differences between each of them and John, but the boys were John Winchester's kids.

As she watched, they both adopted smiles of amusement and nostalgia. "He's right," was all Sam said when Anna's eyes begged him for an answer.

"Kid, you act _just_ like him when you get mad. You're dead quiet and then you explode."

" _You_ do that."

"Well, so did Dad," Sam said with an understanding nod.

"Okay, so I got his temper-"

"Not his temper, just the way you _show_ anger," Sam corrected as if making an important distinction.

Dean bobbed his eyebrows in acknowledgement and then smirked again. "And you're stubborn-"

"Oh, come on."

"You don't think you're stubborn?" Sam asked in disbelief.

"No, but you're both way more stubborn than I am!" she argued, crossing her arms over her chest, looking ready to debate.

"Yeah, well, you might call it a _family trait_ ," Dean said pointedly.

Anna paused and then she felt the fight go out of her. He was right. She needed to spend some time squashing that voice in her head that had taken over on Friday night. "Okay, whatever," she said in defeat, but her voice sounded lighter, too. She'd lost the argument, but she felt better, ten times better.

They weren't done, though. They just weren't talking directly to her anymore, but to each other instead. _About_ her.

"And the nose thing."

"Over _everything_."

"What does that even mean?" Anna asked indignantly. "What nose thing?"

Sam laughed at her, "You wrinkle your nose."

"All the time," Dean added.

" _Dad_ did that?" Anna asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. I mean, not the exact same way, but yeah," Sam said. He looked to Dean, "Was a lot less adorable when Dad did it, huh?"

That comment surprised a laugh out of his brother. "You're not wrong."

Anna glared and crossed her arms again, feeling more affronted with every passing second. "Excuse me!" Her nose wrinkled in anger, and she caught it, immediately trying to flatten her expression so they wouldn't make fun of her. Both of them noticed, though, and laughed harder. "Shut up," she grumbled and slouched. How had this turned into a teasing session when it started out with them being all encouraging and sweet?

The laughter in the room faded within a few more seconds, and it got quiet for a second, but Anna felt eyes on her. She looked up to see that both her brothers were staring at her. She thought maybe they were waiting for her to say something, so she started thinking through what she _should_ say. An apology for the past week of mayhem would be a good start. A promise to be open were she to start sinking into this and not feel capable of pulling herself out again would be a great second line. An expression of gratitude for everything they'd done and their relentless efforts to help her even as she pushed them away would be the perfect finisher. But, apparently, they weren't expecting her to say anything.

"Munchkin, all those traits you _didn't_ get from Dad ain't half bad either. And they don't make you any less a Winchester. None of us is an exact replica of anybody else. But you grew up Winchester style and you've got all the right traits."

"You're just young," Sam finished for his brother. "And you know what? Honestly?"

"What?" Anna asked, feeling shy at the many reprimands and compliments that had been dumped on her i the past half hour or so.

"Dad didn't know how to smile like you do. Hell, we don't know how to smile like you do." He let the words lie for a minute before continuing. "You're really _good_ , Anna."

"Funny timing to be telling me that," Anna mumbled ironically and looked down to pick at the thread in the knee of her jeans again.

"Yeah, well, it's been a long week," Sam admitted, but he didn't sound like he regretted saying what he had.

"And we all have our moments," Dean added.

"Look, if- if you ever want to take a break from the hunting side of this, we are more than okay with that."

Anna snorted. "Yeah, you'd be thrilled, huh?"

Sam smiled a little, "I'm just saying that if you don't feel up to a hunt, say something. Or if you want us here, say something."

"I always want you here," Anna said softly and without censorship. She didn't hurry to correct herself because she wanted to learn how to be honest _all_ the time instead of just when it was comfortable for those around her.

Dean stood up and moved over to put a hand on her head. He pulled her sideways so her head rested against his stomach, and it was a strange but comfortable hug. "We can't be here all the time," he said, sincerely apologetic. "But we can be here when you need us here. Or you can be with us." He let her go and ruffled her messy curls.

"We never wanted you to feel lonely, Anna. We just want you to have something stable," Sam explained gently. "And this place provides stability."

"So, now would be a bad time to ask about dropping out again."

"Unless you're in the mood for a much longer talk where you lose that argument again, yeah," Sam chuckled.

"Is that why you didn't hunt all week?" Anna asked after a minute. "Cause I was being an idiot?"

"Because we wanted to be here until we knew you were okay," Sam corrected, giving her a disapproving look for her choice of words. "Yes."

Anna bit her lip, thinking for a moment about what case they would have taken on had she not been causing trouble all week. Who might've died because they were in Lebanon instead of some town in Georgia or Washington or Rhode Island? She forced it down. She didn't want to think about herself as an inconvenience. They loved her, and they clearly didn't want her to think this negatively about her position. They clearly thought she was worth something that went deeper than hunting things and saving people.

She pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands. She was a source of light, she realized in the corner of her mind that she usually silenced, the corner that often wanted to argue with thoughts like _Half-breed_ or _Baby_. Her job, she thought, as the baby-- though she still hated to think the word-- was to be the most innocent, the happiest, the most naive. She didn't have to try at those things because it wasn't hard to be happier than her older brothers, and because she hadn't seen enough of the world to lack naivety, and because, with everything they had, her family had protected her innocence, that hopeful glint in her eyes.

She took a deep breath, and reached forward to hug Sam too, because they'd done the impossible and made her feel better about things she'd always thought she _deserved_ to feel. Sure, tomorrow it would be harder to remind herself that those things she always thought of herself weren't true. She would certainly still have days where she couldn't help but sit in her room and cry. It would still be hard to be her.

But she sat there, tucked her head into Sam's shoulder, and took a match to the straw girl.

_la fin_


End file.
